Jim Lindgren and David Bernstein have posted, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, some advice for second-year law students. I would add to their suggestions at least one of my own: If your school has (as mine does) upper-level required courses (e.g., Tax, Business Associations, etc.), try to resist the pull of the common view that students should "get the requirements out of the way" as soon as possible. The first year of law school is often a long line of big lecture classes, topped off with standard-issue three-hour exam / disgorgements. It seems to me that second-year students should try to diversify their law-class experience, strike out in some new and even strange directions (go ahead -- take "Law and the Catholic Social Tradition"!), and so on. Besides, you never know if that interesting biodiversity or election-law class -- the one you figure you'll take during your third year, after all the requirements are done -- will be offered or available.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Advice for 2-L students
Regulating love, and religious conversion, in Malaysia.
An interesting story about "Lina Joy, she converted from Islam to Christianity eight years ago and since then has endured extraordinary hurdles in her desire to marry the man in her life."
Ms. Joy had been interested in Roman Catholicism since 1990 and was baptized in 1998 at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Kuala Lumpur. Because she considered herself a Christian, Ms. Joy did not believe the Shariah courts applied to her. In an affidavit to a lower civil court in 2000, she said she felt “more peace in my spirit and soul after having become a Christian.”
Because of the death threats, including some calls to hunt her down, Mr. Dawson said, he could not say where she was, and could not make her available for an interview, even by telephone.
It strikes me, again, that -- for all of our disgreements and divisions -- we in the United States are -- thankfully, and Kevin Phillips notwithstanding-- a long, long way from anything that could plausibly be characterized as a "theocracy."
UPDATE: More happy news from Malaysia, courtesy of Professor Friedman.
Malaysia Uses Religious Rehabilitation Camps
In an article about Muslims who convert to Christianity in Malaysia, today's New York Times discloses that Malaysian religious authorities sentence converts to "religious rehabilitation camps". The article reviews the high profile case of convert Lina Joy pending in the Federal Court, Malaysia's highest court. The case seeks a ruling that civil courts can order a change of religion on Joy's identity card without approval of her conversion from a Shariah court. (See prior posting.) Shariah courts would likely consider Joy an apostate, and if she did not repent it would likely sentence her to several years in an Islamic rehabilitation center. Joy's case is seen as a critical test of whether Malaysia will remain a secular country.
Meanwhile the New Straits Times says that the Federal Court has indicated that it will not be rushed into rendering its decision in Lina Joy's appeal.
Response to Stem Cell Research
Rob, I am shocked, shocked, that the NYT neglected to give a complete and fair presentation the richness of the Church’s position on its concerns about the mechanization of reproduction in its story on harvesting embryonic stem cells. Next thing you know, there will be gambling going on in the back rooms at the NYT.
It’s easy to see where the Advanced Cell Technology researchers are going with this argument, though, and it is scary. They’re trying to characterize the harvesting of embryonic stem cells, without destroying the embryo, as essentially the same as donating blood. At a very early stage in embryonic development, when the embryo is two days old and consists of 8 cells, you can just snip off one of those cells and cultivate stem cells from that cell. The other 7 cells can be implanted in mother’s womb and grow into a healthy baby. The harvested embryonic stem cells can then be cultivated and used to develop cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, obesity, near-sightedness, arrogance, etc., etc. How could anyone possibly object to such a self-less, harmless little procedure that will facilitate miraculous scientific advances?
I know there are other MOJ-ers who can (and have already) articulate much more sophisticated arguments about stem cell research than I, but here are two counterarguments that leap to my mind.
First, even on their terms (ie, this is just the same as donating blood -- no harm, no foul to the developing embryo), this procedure ought to be at least subject to the same kinds of issues about safety and informed consent that apply to blood donation or organ donation. With respect to safety, the NYT article itself hedges about whether harvesting the one cell is safe for the embryo. It says: “Many such embryos have grown into apparently healthy babies over the 10 years or so the diagnostic tests have been used.” Hardly sounds like an utterly risk-free procedure. With respect to informed consent, I really don’t know much about this areas of law, especially as applied to parents giving consent for their children, but there must be some limits to a person’s ability to consent to such procedures on behalf of others. It would be interesting to hear more about how that analysis would apply to this situation.
Here in the Twin Cities, our local science museum just extended its run of the Body Worlds exhibit, which local Star Tribune described as an “The exhibit of skinless cadavers frozen in plastinated poses [that] has drawn more than 433,000 visitors, already making it the most popular exhibit in the museum's history.” Using the bodies of people who have already died in exhibits like this seems to raise all sorts of complicated ethical issues involving consent. At the very least, using the cells of these embryos ought to be subject to the same ethical screens.
Second, the argument this method “would seem to remove the principal objection to” embryonic stem cell research because the embryos can be implanted after the cell is harvested is simply absurd. Isn’t the principal objection to embryonic stem cell research concern about the destruction of embryos involved? If the researchers at Advanced Cell Technology were willing to limit themselves to harvesting their cells from embryos whose parents were committed to implantation after harvesting, they might have a valid argument. But that obviously not the kind of situation in which this technique would be used. The NYT article makes that clear in its description of the technique: “The embryo, now with seven cells, can be implanted in the woman if no defect is found.” This new technique for harvesting embryonic stem cells is an application of the preimplantation genetic diagnosis technique I’ve discussed elsewhere. It’s used to weed out embryos with genetic defects, precisely so they will NOT be implanted.
Significantly, the NYT article cites Dr. Irving Weissman, a stem cell expert at Stanford, for the point that “the new method, if confined to blastomeres derived from preimplantation genetic testing, would not provide a highly desired type of cell, those derived from patients with a specific disease. Many scientists have come to regard this use of the cells, to explore the basic mechanisms of the disease, as more likely to provide new therapies than direct use of the cells themselves.” So it appears much of the scientific value of stem cell research comes from cells that have the disease or defects that the scientists are hoping to cure. Presumably, the researchers at Advanced Cell Technology share those interests. So now they are proposing to use preimplantation genetic testing to identify embryos with those diseases and conditions that they want to study and cure, to harvest one cell from those embryos to use for their research, and assure us that this is O.K. because these embryos will all find loving homes in the wombs of the mothers engaging in this kind of testing??????? I’m sure there must be a more sophisticated legal way to articulate my reaction, and maybe I’ll work that out after I finish getting ready for all the students coming back on Monday, but for now all I can say is … give me a break!!!
Lisa
No "rational" reasons to oppose stem-cell research?
In this story, from today's New York Times, about a method of extracting cells for research purposes from embryos without destroying those embryos, quotes Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of Advanced Cell Technology, as saying that "[t]here is no rational reason left to oppose this research."
For starters, I wonder if Dr. Lanza means to suggest that he thought there were "rational" reasons for opposing embryonic stem-cell research before?
Putting that aside, I find this statement baffling. Perhaps Dr. Lanza just means, "look, the arguments against stem-cell research were really weak before, when they centered on causing the death of embryos, but now -- given that we are throwing the Luddites a bone and trying to avoid killing the embryos -- the objectors really should be mollified." Here, however, is a link to a White Paper produced in 2005 by the President's Council on Bioethics which identifies a number of concerns which would seem to supply, at the very least, "rational" reasons for being concerned about the research described in the Times article. For example, if it is "rational" to worry about research that intentionally causes the death of human embryos, perhaps it is also "rational" to worry about research that seems likely to involve the reckess causing of embryos' deaths?
Plan B Is Now OTC
Today the FDA approved Plan B for over-the-counter sale despite opponents' insistence that the move will increase sexually transmitted diseases, encourage sexual promiscuity, and even (according to Concerned Women for America) provide a means of cover-up for statutory rapists.
Rob
New Method of Stem Cell Research
Thursday's New York Times reports:
Biologists have developed a technique for establishing colonies of human embryonic stem cells from an early human embryo without destroying it. This method, if confirmed in other laboratories, would seem to remove the principal objection to the research.
One curious aspect of the article is its discussion of the Catholic Church's objection to embryonic research even when the embryo is not destroyed:
Richard Doerflinger, deputy director for pro-life activities at the conference of bishops, said the church opposed in vitro fertilization because of the high death rate of embryos in clinics and because divorcing procreation from the act of love made the embryo seem “more a product of manufacture than a gift.”
Asked if he meant that the parents of a child conceived through in vitro fertilization would love it less, Mr. Doerflinger said he was referring to the clinic staff. “The technician does not love this child, has no personal connection with the child, and with every I.V.F. procedure he or she may get more and more used to the idea of the child as manufacture,” he said.
If embryonic stem cell research can be accomplished without sacrificing the embryo's viability, opponents of the research are going to have to muster some pretty compelling arguments to slow the headlong rush to embrace the new technology. If concern over whether clinic staff will grow jaded about the nature of human life is the best argument out there, the chances don't look good.
Rob
UPDATE: Thanks to Carter Snead, former general counsel of the President's Council on Bioethics (and now Notre Dame law prof) for forwarding the Council's analysis of this alternative research method (scroll to page 24). The Council's primary (but not exclusive) ethical concern focuses on "the propriety of imposing risks of embryo biopsy and blastomere removal on the born child the embryo might become, solely for research of no benefit to him or her."
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Theocrats Threaten Physics!
The Templeton Foundation has announced a new initiative to fund cutting-edge physics research with potential theological implications. According to the Boston Globe,
critics of the foundation said they worry the institute will be used to blur the line between science and religion. "I think that bringing science and religion together is a not a good thing," said Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago who did not apply for a grant, and declined an offer to help select the winners. "It is not that different from the Vietnam War, when people wondered whether to take money from the Defense Department for their research, even if their research had no conceivable military application."
All that's missing is a Barry Lynn quote on the threat this poses to the "wall of separation."
Rob
Seeing the (Obvious) Light
Over at the excellent Get Religion blog, Terry Mattingly wonders why it has taken so long for the media to discover that religion is not dying.
Rob
Proportionality and armed conflict
The very astute Catholic commentator and Vatican observer Sandro Magister has some thoughts, in his recent column, about possible shifts -- consistent with Deus caritas est -- in the Holy See's approach to diplomacy. And, he excerpts from a recent piece on "proportionality" by Pietro De Marco, an expert in religious geopolitics, a professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy, and an editorialist for Avvenire, the paper of the Italian bishops' conference.
Summer Book Report #2
In The Creed, Emory theologian Luke Timothy Johnson explores the historical development and contemporary significance of the Nicene Creed (technically, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed). It is one of the richer and more engaging texts on Christian faith and doctrine that I have read. In my church growing up, we never recited a creed, and now I confess to wondering during mass how many of us truly believe every statement we are reciting. Johnson takes this anxiety head-on:
We acknowledge that no one of us individually believes as much or as well as all of us do communally. The church always believes more and better than any one of its members. Does this mean that we act hypocritically when we say together "we believe?" Not at all: it is rather that we stand together under these truths, in the hope that our individual "I believe" someday approaches the strength of the church's "we believe."
Johnson also eludes easy capture by either the conservative or liberal theological camps. On the one hand, he resists any suggestion that the Christian faith can be reconstructed from the ground up through rational inquiry, as though the "givens" of the faith are negotiable:
[S]ince the time of the Enlightenment, the longest-running of all Christological heresies has deeply infiltrated the church with scarcely any protest or controversy, much less the calling of a council of bishops to clarify and defend the faith of the church. I mean the replacement of the Christ of faith with the so-called historical Jesus. . . . I speak of the repudiation of the church's faith in the resurrected Lord and the replacement of that faith with a Jesus reconstructed solely on the basis of what history can reliably tell us, as measured by the methods of the modern critical historian. This view has become so widespread and has received so little opposition -- especially in liberal forms of Christianity -- that in some circles it is regarded as the best available theology rather than as a dreadful distortion of the truth of the gospel.
At the same time, Johnson resists any temptation to expand the scope of what is "given":
The simplicity of the creed is notable first in those matters on which it speaks. The creed consistently affirms what without trying to specify how, and thus liberates in two ways: the minds of believers are free to examine and investigate, without constraint, the gaps left within by the creed's propositions, and their minds are not imprisoned by extraneous and possibly unworthy explanations or elaborations. The creed thus provides a stable confession within which the faithful can find a variety of acceptable standpoints and interpretations. . . the creed gives boundaries, not barriers.
Rob
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