Tag Archives: ethics

Face to Face in Quebec

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My latest in the Christian Courier, found here.
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Quebec has been in the news again over recent weeks. And again it is in relation to questions of religious tolerance and religious accommodation. In this latest round of political and cultural controversy we are in the news because the government of Quebec has passed legislation that prevents those with covered faces from receiving government services.

Arguments against this legislation have been widely rehearsed over past weeks, and most opposition to the law is well founded. The Minister of Justice Stéphanie Vallé tried to argue, for example, that the law applies to anyone with a covered face, including masked protestors – as if the government is addressing a question of public security. But it is more than obvious that the government is targeting niqab-wearing, Muslim women.

It has also been pointed out, rightly, that Muslim women who wear the niqab are very few in Quebec – and, that this marginalized group will only be further marginalized by a law that cuts them off from public services. If there is a question about the wearing of the niqab in Quebec, presumably there were constructive ways to approach this as a social question, other than with the full weight of the law. Conversations with women who wear the niqab might have been a good place to start.

Face to Face in QuebecAll of this is to say that I am in very real sympathy with those who object to this law. I think it should be retracted. But having said that, I also want to suggest there may be two important intuitions beneath the surface of this legislation – intuitions worth attending to. Continue reading →

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supreme court confusion

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Like most Canadians, I don’t make it a habit to read judgments written by the Supreme Court of Canada. Rather, I rely on journalists and other specialists to provide summaries and analyses in relation to various cases decided by the court. It is perhaps also fair to say that the trust I place in these secondary sources mirrors the trust I place in the court itself.

But this has recently been put in question for me.

In the past several days, a doctor in the Quebec City region became the first in Canada to (legally) provide a patient with a lethal injectors on to end his or her life and suffering. This physician’s action was made legal by Quebec’s new assisted-death law and by the February 2015 judgment of the Supreme Court in Carter vs. Canada. More specifically, the legality of this assisted-death should be understood with reference to the Supreme Court’s follow-up decision last week, in which it granted the Federal Government four more months to craft legislation but also allowed the legislative vacuum in Quebec to be filled by that province’s new law.

  It was after hearing these various news reports that I decided to go back and read the Carter decision for myself, in order to understand the arguments that have led to such a dramatic change in our moral and medical landscape. The result of my reading, I must say, is a greatly diminished trust in the Supreme Court of Canada. Continue reading →

this table – the shape of community

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Over the next weeks and leading all the way up to Advent, we are going to be exploring Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians on Sunday mornings. It’s a remarkable letter in so many ways – it explores a huge swath of questions about what it means that we are followers of the risen Jesus. As you can see, I’ve entitled the series faith and body – I think the appropriateness of that title will become pretty clear over the coming weeks.

So this morning we start into this series, but this morning we aren’t going to begin at the beginning. We aren’t going to begin with chapter 1 verse 1. And we’re also not going to begin with an historical sketch of the city of Corinth or even with a sketch of Paul’s life up to the time of writing.

Rather than beginning at the beginning – and rather than beginning with the history and context of the letter – we are going to dive right into the middle of Paul’s letter. We’re going to start in the middle of chapter 11, which is where our New Testament lesson comes from this morning. Continue reading →

the caress, respecting difference

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From the 6th chapter of my book Becoming Two in Love: Kierkegaard, Irigaray, and the ethics of sexual difference, a reflection on the caress as this may embody an ethical intersubjectivity between man and woman. Expressed in somewhat poetic form:

We are by no means strangers. Years of a shared life form a thick and complex backdrop to our everyday conversations and encounters. Between us, the invitation to a caress is a summons to a privileged and private intimacy. And even if this invitation and encounter is marked by a degree of ambiguity or uncertainty, nevertheless a shared history of trust and care mean that the caress may be given, and received, in freedom. Risk remains, certainly—but who could or would mitigate every risk.

This one caressed—open palms moving in arcs of intimacy—she is alive before me, a mystery pressed and pressing against my very being. Is it possible that this caress, this tenderness of touch, might be less about me and less about my desires than it is about her? Is it possible that this touching upon might be less a grasping after her and more a simple affirmation that she is beyond me—that she is becoming fully alive as the woman she is? I have known her these many years, but might this touching upon be a reminder that she is and will be more than I can know? Continue reading →

infanticide versus abortion #PriceOfConsistency

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ethicsI was reading in the health section of London’s Daily Telegraph, and noticed something interesting. Among the top 5 “most viewed for today,” was an article from February 2012. The other 4 articles were all from March of 2013. This happens from time to time when some article draws the particular interest or ire of readers over time – it keeps popping up in the top five.

The title of the article might give you a sense as to why it has reappeared in the top 5: “Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say”. The news article referred to a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics which explored the difference between, obviously, abortion and infanticide. The authors argued that babies do not have a moral right to life. From the news article:

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. Continue reading →