The Ethics of Life and Death: Bristol AASS Discussion

Last Tuesday was a discussion with Bristol AASS on matters spanning from the very beginning to the very end of life. Covering abortion, euthanasia and everything in between it was an interesting discussion and some new members who were medics turned up too.

Starting at abortion we investigated our thoughts about where human life began and on what grounds abortion should be acceptable. The principles we discussed fell into 3 broad categories:

1) Sentience
2) Viability
3) Anthropocentrism

Level of sentience was an important concern, with the stage of development from which the foetus can feel pain as a key point. Whilst practical, some pointed out that the foetus could be anaesthetised so this should not be given as much weight as it is. The vegetarians also pointed out our anthropocentrism in matters of sentience, more willingly killing a cat than a human foetus, despite the former being much more neurologically complex at that state of development.

Viability, or the foetus' ability to survive outside the womb, is frequently used as another benchmark for the abortion limit. Recent attempts to restrict abortion have hinged upon new technological advances allowing foetuses to survive outside the womb from an earlier age. Again, this was another argument to which most could not give much weight because it is not inconceivable that technology could eventually make embryos viable from conception, yet few would have moral qualms about terminating a few cells.

Of the three, I think the consensus was that sentience was the strongest metric, with the other two feeding in to a lesser extent.

The "talented violinist" thought experiment filled a good portion of the debate, questioning whether anyone has the right to use another human's body, even if they are fully developed and have proven potential. This caused quite some controversy with people falling both sides of the fence. Those for it broadly followed a human rights approach (everyone has a right to life, but that does not entail the right to use another person's body) whilst those against took a utilitarian line (9 months of incapacitation will result in both you and another going on to lead full lives).

Moving onto the second part of the discussion which was about the end of life, death, suicide and euthanasia we began by assessing why it was fine to put an animal down "to put them out of their misery" but why this compassion could not be extended to humans. The critical difference identified was that of human agency; whether another human should be allowed to die should not be the choice of anyone but the person themselves.

The provocatively worded question "is it arrogant to assume that someone's life is worth living? (if they don't think it is)" resulted in some stiff debate. People in a temporary mental state could be depressed or suicidal without reason and it wasn't arrogant to check that this was not the case first. If, however, someone has made a rational decision about their situation and is in extreme, incurable  pain all the time but cannot kill themselves, for example, then we should respect their decision. Caitlin G said that, similar to Terry Pratchett, she would be terrified of getting Alzheimers and would prefer death to long, unrelenting debilitation.

The end of the discussion ended with disagreement on who should be allowed assisted dying with one person saying that the person's will should not be the only factor and their their family should be included in the decision too. This brought us full circle back to the "talented violinist" discussion - who has the right to say what you should do with your own body?

As ever, this discussion session was fascinating, fun and full of vigorous debate. If that's your kind of thing, here are some upcoming events you might be interested in:

The next discussion is "Atheism and Feminism" tonight (Tuesday) at 8pm in The Colston Arms

Don't forget to book tickets for the AHS Convention in London on the 1st March. Speakers include Robin Ince and Jim Al-Khalili!

9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People 2012

I went with Lawrence T and his friends to 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People last night at the Bloomsbury Theatre not quite aware of what I was letting myself in for. Robin Ince compered the event with the energy and passion of a rational David Icke, a non-stop stream of performers stretching the show to over 3 hours.

The show opened with the house band playing some funk-tronica, the brass instruments accompanying the ethereal sounds from the laser-harp swaddled in theatrical dry-ice. After this strong start, the first half was, frankly, a little baffling. There were many many person-with-a-guitar acts and a weird character piece which imagined the film Brief Encounter set in the present day which, having never watched, Brief Encounter, was utterly impenetrable  Josie Long saved the first half with her excellent stand-up routine, especially the part where she said Jay-Z lyrics in the style of a 1930's Film Noir detective (I've got 99 problems, but a dame ain't one). Try it!

The second half was considerably stronger, with some brilliant acts. Especially enjoyable was the mental change of gear when Richard Herring did a bit from Talking Cock, waxing phallical, right after a scientist from CERN had been oozing excitement about the consequences of what could turn out to be a Higgs Boson. In an innovative twist on ventriloquism, one performer spoke as a large, projected cartoon of God, complete with cloud and thunderbolts for smiting, which he controlled with an XBOX controller.  Those who entered doubting God's power surely left convinced after God smote the band-leader, causing him to spill beer all over his equipment! Mark Thomas ended the evening with his tales of "book heckling", putting sarcastic comments on bits of paper and leaving them in the spine of books in the shop. He told us his technique for replacing the stickers on books with his own (the trick is to "palm" the sticker before you enter the shop to make it less obvious) and gave away some facetious stickers at the end to encourage more people to do the same!

Whilst the show had some excellent moments, the running time of over 3 hours made it gruelling at times, especially when you got a couple of mediocre acts in a row. A good show for those in an exploratory mood, but maybe not for those seeking something with a coherent theme!

The First AHS Southern Regional Convention

The AHS' first ever southern regional conference was run last Saturday, hosted by the Southampton Atheist Society. Ever fearful of weekend bus schedules, I brought Greta (my bike) with me to navigate Southampton's post-war tarmac and concrete defiance up to the Highfield campus in the leafy suburbs.

It was quite a small event, with only member of Southampton Atheist Society able to make the event in the end, but good fun and worthwhile nonetheless. The day began with Jess V and Matt P giving a talk on how to run Reason Weeks, quickly covering pretty much everything from inviting speakers down to organising catering. I was up next to trial my new workshop on Risk Assessment. Everyone was prepared for the worst, with a title like that, but it turned out to be good fun with a great deal of interaction. After lunch David Allen Green gave a talk on campaigns, chastising those whose campaigns limit themselves to protest and talking about his work on the Paul Chambers "Twitter Joke Trial". Rounding off the day was Jonathan Pearce who deconstructed the Nativity Story, exposing its historical inaccuracies and how the story we're familiar with from school plays is a hodgepodge of the conflicting accounts of Matthew and Luke.

Rocking PowerPoint . . . Like a Boss

I was pretty pleased with how my workshop went. I started by examining the reasons for taking risks and making sure that the goals are always clear and well communicated. For a student society these might include getting attention for the society, growing membership and having fun! We then looked at risk management in three exercises which would demonstrate risk identification, analysis and mitigation. 

Splitting the people in the audience into two teams, I asked them to imagine a really risky event that they'd enjoy putting on. Team A came up with a "book burning" event where religious and atheist texts would be burnt onto CDs and handed out for free, whilst Team B suggested an exhibition of "Mohammed in Atheist Art" event which would be accompanied by a debate.

In the second exercise the teams identified four key risks in each other's events and rated them by probability of occurrence and the impact on the event were they to occur. These risks ranged from technical problems and preventing accidents to more unusual ones. Common to both were concerns about how the motivation for what they were doing could be misrepresented by unsympathetic groups and even violence towards the event organisers or attendees. Violence is unlikely, but not impossible, as demonstrated earlier this year when a student threatened members of Queen Mary ASH at an event about Sharia Law.

In the final task each team came up with mitigation strategies for risks associated with their events and we had good discussions about what you should do to counter bad publicity and violent individuals. Having a statement prepared outlining the reason for your event and your motivations is always a good idea, for example. If violence is threatened at an event then it should always be suspended or cancelled until adequate security can be provided by the student union or university.

Of the two, perhaps the most difficulty would be with the "Mohammed in Atheist Art" event, given Student Unions tend to err on the side of causing no offence rather than defending free expression, most recently demonstrated in the case of a Pineapple named Mohammed at Reading University. This said, the overriding message of the workshop was that we should not avoid doing something simply because there are some risks attached - most often the risk is worth taking and it gives a great sense of achievement to leave a society bigger and better than when you joined it.

Big thanks to Southampton Atheists and the AHS Exec for organising this event. Jenny B was in Edinburgh for the Scottish AHS conference on the same day as I was in Southampton, so hopefully these will both inspire more regional events in future!

Abort67 Counter-Protest at Bristol Uni

Last Friday afternoon I took some time out of my afternoon to stand on Tyndall Road in the crisp November air and watch some deeply misguided people display giant pictures of foetuses. They belonged to a group called Abort67 who have been touring university campuses with the aim of shocking people into becoming anti-abortion.

Pro-choice students counter-protesting against Abort67

I didn't have time to take a picture of their larger banners, though, as students swiftly swept into action, covering the pictures with a giant banner saying "This union is Pro-Choice!" Like other similar organisations, they profess to be secular, yet their religious motivations are clear, with biblical scripture on one of the placards I managed to get a photo of.

See, it's OK, because women don't count as "every one"

After all were in place, little further happened. The protest was peaceful, with the occasional snipe from the Abort67 members, "What would your mother say if you told her you'd had an abortion?"

Whilst peaceful, I felt uneasy about the covering of Abort67's placards. Having banged on about freedom of speech before, it seems that this right must be granted to all, not just to those with whom we agree. I brought this up with some of the counter-protesters there and they justified what they were doing by saying that they were preventing harm and distress to students and also to the children at the local school and, indeed, a bunch of children on a bikeability session passed the protest site. I felt a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, questioning the actions of clearly awesome people who'd taken time out of their afternoon to stand up for what they believed in.

Turning the question round, I was asked "what is the alternative?" Caitlin G, ever the wag, suggested satirising their use of the "disgust factor" by staging an even more horrific counter protest with placards displaying a gangrenous leg or a body disinterred from a lead coffin (something she reliably informs me is particularly nasty). Others suggested "blue waffle" (DON'T Google that!). This solution, though clever, does risk turning Tyndall Avenue into a street of fleshy nightmares.

Perhaps the solution is to go entirely the other way. Who would want to walk on the foetusy side of the street when on the other are fluffeh duckies and mittens?

If they come back to Bristol, I WILL make this!

Risk Assessing Blasphemous Pineapples: The Fruit of all Evil?

The beginning of the university year has its ups and downs. On the negative side there are undergraduates everywhere, the world’s brightest frequently stumped by supermarket self-service machines and deciding that the middle of a busy pavement is the perfect place to conduct an in-depth conversation. On the plus side, there are undergraduates everywhere, including at Bristol AASS which means the weekly meetings have started again.

Last week’s drink and think discussion was on “Free Speech and the Media”. Inevitably, the Reading Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society’s (RAHS) blasphemous pineapple came up in discussion and provoked quite a lot of debate about free speech in student unions.  It was especially relevant because the University of Bristol Student Union (UBU) has policies curbing “offense” under its “safe space” policy which is similar to the “behavioural policy” which has been used by RUSU against RAHS.

A lot of the debate about blasphemy follows two major lines of thought. Firstly, should RUSU have prevented RAHS displaying their blasphemous pineapple? Secondly, should RAHS have displayed the blasphemous pineapple in the first place and was causing offense a productive method for engagement? To the first question, most I’ve spoken to think that the student union officials did not make the correct decision - a fresher’s fair is an event open to all students and as a public space there should be no expectation of comfort nor protection of your own worldview from challenging worldviews. To the second there is a more mixed response - with some thinking it was an excellent way to bring attention to the issue of free speech and blasphemy whilst others criticised RAHS for “gratuitous offense” or even “Muslim-baiting”.

I fall on the side of thinking that this was a perfectly valid way for RAHS to make their point. It seems that many of the concerns people have about this are actually not about the act of blasphemy itself, but about a bunch of attendant anxieties. Such worries might include a fear that the EDL or the Daily Mail may appropriate the story to feed their narratives of "creeping Islamisation," for example. Earlier this year, one Muslim student suggested to me that blasphemy rules were a good way of preventing stereotyping by the far-right, but such a blunt policy erodes freedom of expression to an unacceptable degree. It might therefore be useful to think about blasphemy campaigning not in terms of whether you should or should not do it, but carry out a risk-reward calculus and how the risks can be avoided and the rewards maximised. Such an analysis might look something like this:

Good risk mitigation involves building a highway from the danger zone.

The relative position of each of the risks on the graph can be useful for identifying the most important risks and therefore the amount of effort that should be spent trying to address them. You can then look at ways of addressing each risk:

Excluded from Student Union events

Probability: Low

Impact: Medium

Description: Being kicked out of Fresher’s Fair or involvement with student council. This will impact on building relationships with other societies and will impact member recruitment and membership fees!

Mitigation: If this does happen, are there other ways members could sign-up? Make sure there’s an online sign-up form that you could direct people to or bring some paper forms to events. RAHS got other societies to hand-out leaflets on their behalf at Fresher’s Fair.

Hastily scrawled graphs = great success!

The rewards graph is the reverse of the risks graph - you want to build on rewards and maximise their impact and probability! Looking at the potential rewards, you can think about how to best capitalise on them:

Publicity, Increase Membership, Advertise Event

Probability: Medium

Impact: Medium

Description: If people complain and action is taken against your society then the ensuing controversy is likely to attract media attention. Exclusion from student union events might hamper recruitment and event advertising, so it’s important to use the attention received to drive society membership and event attendance.

Capitalisation: Make sure that the society name is included in press releases and that the purpose and aims of your society are emphasised. RAHS used their initial press release to advertise their first event of the year “Should we respect religion?”

This is just a quick analysis because you’re going to encounter different risks and rewards at different universities and with different student union officers! Norman R and I were thinking of developing a more general AHS workshop on risk management so societies can feel more confident judging how effective campaigns might be and how opportunities can be best exploited. This is certainly a different approach from a lot of the discussion so far - do you think this is a useful tool for thinking about the issues like this?

Dawkins Keynote at NSS Conference

Last Saturday I went to the National Secular Society Conference in London to learn more about the state of secularism today. The venue had been kept secret until a few days before the event and I found myself wondering whether the person ahead of me a secret secularist and were they heading to the conference too? The event’s enigma was further added to by the venue itself - the Royal National Hotel - which looks like one of those hotels you get in 70’s detective dramas. Lacking cigarettes or corduroy I did my best to look shifty as I entered the hotel.

First impressions are important, and the volunteers were all excellent at getting us our name badges and showing us where to go. Delegate packs were very swanky and contained the latest NSS bulletin which I was pleased to note featured the Secularist Student Award. The stalls of various NSS affiliated groups were bustling with activity and it was good to meet so many familiar faces and a lot of younger people too - 30% of the delegates were students!

Enthusiastic intergenerational dialogue - and stall freebie art!

The talks kicked off with Ted Cantle, Professor at the Institute of Community Cohesion. He was promoting the idea of interculturalism as a replacement for multiculturalism which he said was responsible for different ethnic and faith groups leading parallel and isolated lives. Approaching communities through self-appointed “community leaders” and funding projects based on a group’s race or faith was bad for social cohesion with one of the biggest barriers being faith schools which segregate children.

Llanelli MP, Nia Griffith, was very and entertaining, bemoaning scheduled prayers in Parliament and asking “why don't we have a more secular society already? Because we have ‘tradition’.” Failure to make secularism a vote-winner means that politicians have no interest in adopting explicitly secular policies. “Principled politicians must overcome their fear of being seen as anti-religious and anti-tradition”.

“Secularism is an important pre-condition for equality” said Pragna Patel, founding member of Southall Black Sisters. “Religious groups increasingly use the language of equality and human rights when actually undermining it.” Patel was the first to break the consensus between the speakers, taking on Cantle saying his report criticised multicultural policy  too harshly in places and failed to acknowledge the positives.

Having heard Nick Cohen and Maryam Namazie several times before I decided to attend the afternoon’s “break-out sessions”. First up was Sue Cox of Survivor’s Voice, a charity which campaigns to network and raise awareness of survivors of abuse by the clergy. For me, Cox was the best speaker of the day, able to address the horror of the Catholic Church’s institutional cover-up of paedophilia by members of its clergy with passion and determination for justice whilst remaining warm and engaging at the same time. "Can you imagine a deaf and dumb abuse survivor doing the Moonwalk outside the Vatican?" she said, referring to a march earlier this year.

Cox made the somewhat surprising statement, “We don’t want your money! We want you to tell everyone you know that we exist!” I asked her about this, and she clarified that she didn’t want money for Survivor’s Voice as an organisation because some abuse survivor’s charities can end up becoming a business and she wanted to avoid that. What she did absolutely want money for, however, was a travel fund to help survivors attend demonstrations and for a research project. Survivor’s Voice are the recommended charity for this year’s Non-Prophet Week, so its good to know that every single penny will go to good use!

Agata gets her lab coat signed by Richard Dawkins

Lunch, always an important consideration at conferences, was excellent with a wide array of sandwiches including some particularly excellent beef and horseradish offerings. It was also a good chance to have chat with people including Dom, Martin and Gav from my hometown of Bristol staffing the Bristol Secular Society stall. Plenty of students were there too, with members of OX:ASH helping on the Survivor’s Voice stall and Jess Vautier and Matthew Power representing the AHS.  There were too many stalls to visit them all, though I had some interesting chats with the London Atheist Activist Group and Camp Quest, the rationalist camp for kids which inspired the AHS’ Questival for older, drunker people.

After lunch was Terry Sanderson and Keith Porteus-Wood who reported on the NSS’ current involvement in the current legal cases at the European High Court and other successes this year including victory on council prayers. Challenged on whether the NSS should be arguing more strongly against faith, the (mostly friendly) rivalry with the BHA surfaced with Sanderson joking that humanists like "airy-fairy philosophising ... almost theological."and that the NSS  "doesn’t need to debate the existence of god ... we know it's bullshit!" He justified the NSS’ approach by pointing out that institutional elements like faith schools are key in the perpetuation of religious belief, their indoctrinating effect so strong that he could still remember at least twenty hymns off-by-heart! Discussion ended on a question about what ordinary members and local groups could do to promote secular causes. For the moment, it seems like the NSS wants to keep affiliated groups at arms length, Sanderson saying that he has had experiences in the past where other secular groups haven’t fully supported the NSS' values.

Returning to the main room, it was a pleasure as ever to hear Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner. He sought to throw wide the overall cause of human rights, characterising it as not just a secular cause, but one which also requires taking on the current economic system. Fantastically animated and radical he was critical of oppressive systems stating “organised religion is the main threat to human rights, not people of faith, who are often victims of oppression”.

Richard Dawkins, never one to mince his words, challenges those who would call him a “dick”

The conference was rounded-off by Richard Dawkins, who took to the stage with his characteristic pro-rationalist zeal, opening by countering Phil Plait’s plea to atheists to “don’t be a dick”. “I try to convince fence-sitters, those who haven't thought and those who don't realise there's a fence to sit on!” he explained, adding that the “battle for acceptance of evolution is part of a wider war for critical thought.” He went on to justify why Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is fair game for criticism in a political context, exposing some of Mormonism’s crazier beliefs, such as magic pants, along the way. Some of the material didn’t quite work, with a description of Muslims wearing “bin bags” resulting in an audible sharp intake of breath from the audience and a slightly excruciating parody letter of a Tony Blair Faith Foundation fundraising letter raising a few quizzical eyebrows. Then again, it would be easy for Dawkins to just play the hits, so it’s always refreshing to hear some new stuff even if it doesn’t quite work.

Overall, the conference was excellent and additional fun was to be had to head to the pub with people afterwards to discuss our favourite speakers of the day, somehow ending up at the ethics of bestiality. Looking back at the day, if there were one criticism I would make it would be the strong dissonance between who secularism is for and who owns it. Whilst there were many statements reiterating how secularism protects freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion there were no explicitly religious speakers. Is authentic secularism is an atheist-driven secularism? Does platforming Dawkins make a strong statement to this effect?  Segregating education and other public services by faith is a bad idea - surely there must be religious voices who would agree with this idea, especially from religions which have not enjoyed traditional privilege in the UK? What did you think?

March and Rally for a Secular Europe 2012

March and Rally for a Secular Europe 2012
Photo: Mary G

Secularism received a bashing from Eric Pickles this week, declaring the National Secular Society to be "intolerant" and characterising secularism as a doctrine which would ban "discreet religious symbols for reasons of political correctness." Pickles additionally deserves a gold-medal for his Olympian display of mental gymnastics when stating that privileging the Christian churches with "a particularly strong claim to be heard" somehow benefits everyone else. So you can imagine my surprise when I attended the March and Rally for a Secular Europe last Saturday, with people Pickles would probably call "militant secularists," all of whom were concerned about equality for all rather than the strict control of iconography in jewellery.

Posing for the camera
Photo: Amber W

I headed down with Jenny B and there was a good turn-out of people I knew through the AHS and other organisations including the BHA and NSS. Arriving late, we hurried to put up my placard with its rubbish joke which had started out as "I don't believe in miracles, since you came along ..." but that was technically inaccurate (secularism is a political statement advocating separation of church and state and is neutral when it comes to metaphysical claims) and the only thing worse than a rubbish joke is an fallacious rubbish joke! Alternatives I had considered included "Schools for Education, not Faith Segregation" and "Get Your Hands Off My Glans!" with an angry penis backing away from a circumcision blade. I think everyone was relieved that I'd not chosen the latter!

Numbers were down on previous years with only a few hundred turning out and the rally confined to a street down the back of Kings College London student Union. The 2010 March and Rally for a Secular Europe attracted 20,000 people for "Protest the Pope" when pontiff visited the UK. Perhaps future protests need a narrower theme, though it's hard to beat the Pope for a symbol of the worst of patriarchal religious control over people's sex lives and ecclesiastical displays of wealth and power.

The speakers covered a wide range of issues of religious privilege. Sue Cox, clerical abuse victim and a leader of Survivor's Voice was characteristically enthusastic, thanking the march attendees and hailing the event as "the yearly shot in the arm which keeps me going." Survivor's Voice is an important charity supporting those who have been abused and subsequently forced into silence by the Catholic Church cover-up and the AHS will be helping to raise money for them through this year's Non-Prophet Week.

Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner, made his case strongly, criticising the promotion of inequality by religious organisations whilst acknowledging the diverse views held by individual adherents.

Tatchell: "Religious organisations are biggest threat to equality for women & LGBT people ... but there are also people of faith who have stood alongside us for secularism and equality."

It was disappointing that there was only one speaker of faith (Mejindarpal Kaur, Legal Director of United Sikhs) at the event and no visible representatives from other faith groups. There was one guy wearing a t-shirt saying "Young Earth Creationist: Trolling Your Meeting," but he looked pretty godless to me! Perhaps it is understandable that the two most advantaged groups - Anglicanism and Catholicism - do not come out force, after all who would want to campaign against their own privileges removed? Having said that, if those religions can only maintain their position with state-support then that must represent a certain lack of confidence in the underlying tenets.

Robin Ince ended the rally with a broad speech, expressing surprise at how secularism and equality could be twisted to be presented as somehow anti-theist and lancing the moral pomposity of organised religion.

Ince: "The question is not how you can have morals without god, but how religious organisations can be so immoral with Him."

Similarly, he expressed incomprehension at how faith schools could possibly be considered as a way of promoting diversity

Ince: "The biggest enemy of bigotry is to mix with the people that other people are trying to make you bigoted against."

He's put the text online here, but I recommend watching the video to get the full effect with wild gesticulations and physical passion filling his words with sincerity, warmth and humanity.

Robin Ince - Speech at the Secular Europe march
Video: Matryer

It turned out to be an excellent day, with the Pod Delusion's 3rd Birthday party neatly rounding off proceedings with a healthy dose of skepticism, music and fire! For those who can't wait for more secularism, there's the Secular Conference next weekend in the Conway Hall with an all-star line-up including no less than Richard Dawkins himself.

If there was a single take-home message, I think it's that framing the removal of religious privilege as a form of oppression is a simple misrepresentation of what secularism is. Secularism means equality for all, protecting both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.