Ethicists Propose After-birth Abortion

Opinions on abortion are still divided and the topic causes heated debates from time to time, not least during the Presidential campaigns when hopeful candidates speak of their personal outlooks. Yet if the termination of an unborn child with no consciousness is not divisive enough, two ethicists working with Australian universities claim in the Journal of Medical Ethics that “after-birth abortion” should be permissible from an ethical standpoint.

After-birth abortion, once the name has been peeled back, simply means murder, although the two ethicists in question, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, prefer the term to murder or infanticide because it emphasises “that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus”. Also rejected is the term euthanasia, because the reason for the killing may not be because of the child’s best interests, but those of the parents.

Part of the controversy regarding abortion is deciding at what point the termination should be allowed, with current rulings settling at 24 weeks. After-birth abortion would necessitate extremely grueling, confusing and rigorous rules to determine an acceptable case, and Giunilini and Minerva state that it will be acceptable in such instances as putting the well-being or life of the family at risk, and consider Downs Syndrome as a good example because “such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.” Ultimately this would mean that any newborn that puts a psychological, social or economical burden on parent or society could be subjected to an after-birth abortion. The potential risk should this ever become law is setting the stage for eugenics, where, hypothetically, new criteria could be set for an ‘acceptable’ human being and anything less than that would be considered a burden on the family or society. This would be less likely if the decision relied solely on the parents, but if societal burdens were brought into the equation then the possibility of state interference could not be ruled out.

According to the authors, after-birth abortion is morally acceptable because newborn babies are not people in the “morally relevant sense” but instead are “potential persons” because to be considered a person, in their opinion, means being “an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” However, this viewpoint does not seem to touch upon how a child with perfect mental capacity – that would understand its existence – but a physical condition that would burden the family or society would fit into the suggestion of after-birth abortion. Essentially, Giubilini and Minerva are asserting that, from an ethical standpoint, newborn children should not be considered actual persons anymore than a 23-week-old fetus is, despite the state of consciousness that a born child has. This is highlighted in their defence of after-birth abortion that “merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence,” although they make no attempt to define at what age someone is considered an “actual” person.

For many, this idea would seem abhorrent. Yet there is the case of at least one woman that may confuse the issue because she wishes her son had never been born. Not for reasons of not loving her child, but because his condition will not only kill him in the near future and causes intense suffering for the child and his family while he is alive. In other words, this is the sort of scenario Giubilini and Minerva were likely thinking of in their paper.

Emily Rapp is the woman in question, and her son Ronan, who is nearly two, suffers from the progressive genetic disorder Tay-Sachs disease. Although still alive, Ronan is paralysed and blind as a result of the disease. His mother says that had she been aware during her pregnancy that her son would suffer daily seizures and be paralysed to such a degree that he cannot even swallow, she would have saved him the pain and suffering and opted for an abortion – but his condition went undetected. Emily Rapp stressed that while she would have had an abortion, it “would have been a different kind of loss to mourn and would by no means have been a cavalier or uncomplicated, heartless decision.” She also goes to great lengths to ensure people know her words are not borne out of a lack of love for her son, but rather her love for him is so great she wants to spare him the pain – to the point that she would live without him: “I’m so grateful that Ronan is my child. I also wish he’d never been born; no person should suffer in this way…with no hope for a cure. Both of these statements are categorically true; neither one is mutually exclusive…I love Ronan, and I believe it would have been an act of love to abort him, knowing that his life would be primarily one of intense suffering, knowing that his neurologically devastated brain made true quality of life…impossible.”

It goes without saying of course that wishing you had undergone an abortion in hindsight and killing a child you can physically hold in your arms are not the same thing, but does a real-life example of a parent who sees the suffering in her child’s life and a degree of kindness in termination blur the lines of morality enough to make after-birth abortion an acceptable idea? Or is it the case that it opens too many possibilities for abuse; that people suffer at any age and we need to just accept that is how life is?

 

 

Accept the Damn Organ!

Anti-rejection drugs, which are used when an organ transplant is completed, may go out of use with a newly-discovered cellular principle. Hooray!

In the past, when one accepted an organ it was a hassle to get the body to accept it. So the patient would have to take immunosuppressive drugs to keep the organ from being rejected. But the problem with this was that the drugs would either have horrible side-effects or would just stop working. And this is all before we get to the price which Suzanne Ildstadthe, Director for the Institute for Cellular Therapeutics at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, outlines as roughly $25,000 per year in the US.

Now, this is clearly due to the fact that the US operates a terrible health care system where only the rich can afford the necessary treatment, but even in the UK this would still cost the NHS a massive amount of money; and all of this is paid for by us through our taxes.

The trial discovered this involved taking a number of patients and reducing a great many of their immune cells, which was done through radiation and chemotherapy. They then implanted the donated organ, from a genetically mismatched donor, and then implemented bone marrow alongside the organ. The hope was that because bone marrow can produce immune cells from the donor’s genetic code and the patient’s genetic code would “blend” so the chance of organ rejection would be significantly reduced. In this test it was all about testing kidney transplantation.

kidney transplant

The study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine demonstrated that 7 out of 10 patients used in this trial could be successfully taken off of immunosuppressive drugs. This is great, right?

Well, for the most part this is great. The only issue with this way of transplanting organs is that it still retains the patient’s chances of suffering from graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD as the disease is most commonly known.

GVHD is where the donor’s immune cells actually attack the body it’s being placed in, like if you dropped a group of chavs into another city whilst they were sleeping; hey, they are simplistic, they can’t help it. However, another study did show that the removal of these cells which were likely to cause GVHD did help in preventing the disease. The only problem is that the results of the study were considered to be inconclusive in the long-term because GVHD can appear years later.

Placing this in an overall perspective, essentially what we have done here is replaced another human’s immune system. If we can successfully replace parts of human beings on a cellular level then who knows what this could lead to in the future?

Yes, it would mean that thousands of patients wouldn’t be waiting on hospital beds until a successful donor could be found, but it could mean the death of many more ailments. If undifferentiated cells, from bone marrow, can be successfully differentiated into cells of the scientist’s choice then we could eliminate things like deafness, blindness, and maybe even learn to regenerate entire limbs.

The only issue with all of this is when we eventually ascend to this scientific plane we may even be getting close to the concept of immortality as everybody’s lifespan starts to reach the 100 mark. Of course, none of this is likely to appear in our lifetimes, but the future of science after we are gone is certainly very bright.

News in Briefs 11/03/12

This has been a pretty boring week for the news if you were just watching the mainstream news feeds. But that doesn’t mean that we have nothing for you this week because even if politicians and morons (those two are pretty much the same thing) are not in the public eye it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been humiliating and embarrassing themselves just as much as usual.

Political Oops of the Week

It’s never nice when a few Islamic militants have you at gun point in a hostage situation. But this situation was made much more uncomfortable this week when British Special Forces attempted to rescue two hostages, one British and one Italian, in Nigeria. The problem was that they didn’t bother to tell their Italian allies about the rescue operation.

Surely this should have all been forgotten about, though, because the point is that the hostages are alive? Oh, wait. They’re not alive. They’re not alive because when the firing started the militants killed the hostages. If everything had gone well then this political embarrassment could have been forgotten about, but the fact that Britain attempted to demonstrate the size of its figurative balls by doing it all on its own just makes it even worse.

Rightly, the Italians are upset about all of this. But Foreign Secretary William Hague just made things worse when he was quoted as saying: the short amount of time we had to act “constrained how much we were able to consult others.”

So things were that urgent that you couldn’t have given the Italians a quick phone call? Exactly how long does it take to enter a simple phone number into your mobile phone? About ten seconds, twenty seconds if you’re Eric Joyce, and maybe even thirty seconds if you’re Boris Johnson. You didn’t necessarily have to coordinate with the Italians, but you could have at least given them a heads up about it.

It’s a good thing Berlusconi isn’t there anymore because he may have just slept with all your wives in retaliation!

David Cameron
So you say you didn't manage to dial the right number?

 

The Painful…

Everybody loves a news story they can relate to. This is another one of those stories as Richard Dale Fox killed his girlfriend in his California trailer home with a homemade cannon. Don’t worry, Richard, because we’ve all been there where we’ve accidently set off our homemade cannons and almost killed our loved ones, haven’t we?

His girlfriend died of shrapnel wounds as the projectile came through the window. Sadly, the authorities wouldn’t reveal exactly what the projectile was, or even how the cannon was made, but they did reveal that it was fired by using the same powder found in fireworks. Richard Fox was also taken to hospital with severe leg wounds as the cannon exploded when he fired it. This sounds very similar to the guy who tried to blow up a plane a few years ago but only succeeded in burning his own bollocks off. Maybe they are friends?

Cannon
What a perfect way to surprise my girlfriend!

 

…And the Pointless

David Cameron revealed something monumental this week. Ready for it? That’s right, David Cameron likes to play the game Angry Birds in his spare time. And, yes, this was reported on BBC News. It just makes this writer wonder exactly what the point of anything is anymore.

In most cases, it would be a case of me thinking that “Hey, it doesn’t matter to have a bit of light-hearted talk sometimes.” But what was particularly irritating was the fact that this was in the middle of a Government meeting. After a bit of digging, this was actually a part of some initiative where it gets children to report the news on the BBC website next week.

What a complete and utter waste of time and money. Why is this going to be of any use whatsoever? The children are going to be reporting on news that they really don’t know anything about. Do the BBC still think that people are attracted to the prospect of having some snotty-nosed bundle of irritation reporting on the news? The people I know who visit news websites are there for one reason: they are there to get the news quickly, simply, and easily. Not to have to wade through all the childish dribble which the BBC are going to be spreading all over their website.

News should be the news, children’s channels should be for children. It really is that simple.

The so Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Vladimir Putin is Russia’s new president, for the third time. Whether you’re a fan of Putin or not, though, you have to admit that the results of the election were a tad dubious when looking at some of Putin’s tactics this time round.

The exit poll predicted that Putin would win the election with at least a 60% majority vote, which he did, but the fact that some of his supporters were caught ferrying his supporters to vote at multiple polling stations does make it seem like it was a little rigged. And the fact that international overseers even admitted that the election favoured Putin doesn’t seem to have bothered any world leaders at all.

To date, all world leaders have acknowledged Putin’s victory, and Obama even phoned him personally from Air Force One to congratulate him. It does make one wonder exactly why nobody seems to be up in arms about this. But there’s no denying that the only reason Putin was out of the presidential office to begin with was because of the Russian constitution stipulating that you can only have two consecutive terms in office.

But, then again, when you look at the fact the Communist Party finished 2nd, you start to see exactly why a little bit of corruption has perhaps done at least some good on this occasion.

A Positive Outlook for the Week

One item on the agenda which does look like it’s coming to an end is the Rangers FC administration case. The administrator stipulated on Friday that there was a Friday deadline for all buyers to put forward their bid to buy the club. This means that it looks like we will be seeing an end to this sorry saga quite soon. What’s more, the fact that the senior players all decided to take massive pay cuts means that Ranger won’t be going anywhere, so now Scottish Football won’t be made completely meaningless and pointless next season. Although, this writer still won’t be paying any attention to it.

As for everything else, the fact that there was very little going on this week leads to speculation that next week should be awash with lots of interesting news.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…

Will You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed Me?

A bit of bad news plopped through my letterbox this week. It was a letter from the Pensions Department stating that I won’t get my state pension until I’m two months shy of my 67th birthday. I had known it was going to be delayed until I was 64+ some months, ago but this new development is the result of the government’s latest plan to raise the retirement age.

I’m not looking for sympathy (well, a little bit) and I moan and bleat about it whilst knowing that lots of other people have far worse problems. It’s just that growing up to think you’ll retire at 60 and then being told otherwise at this late stage feels like a low blow. But I hear lots of men shouting at their computers now saying, “ But you women wanted equality!” Yes, we did….and we should be equal at some point in terms of retirement age. Hey, women live longer anyway! However, many women of my generation gave up working for years to raise a family and our pension prospects consequently suffered. Is this what my older sisters (symbolically speaking) burned their bras for?

If only I’d been born a couple of months earlier…or years. Okay, I’m moaning again.  I’ve taken this very badly, I’ll admit. The next generation will grow up with a different mindset, I’m sure and previous generations had to work ‘till they dropped. There was no welfare state to send them into a blissful halcyon of gentle leisure in the twilight of their years. As the rules stand now (unless the Pension Campaign can create a revolution) my children will get their pension when they’re 68. Alas, what will it amount to anyway? I urge any young people reading this to get that private pension sorted now….don’t delay…put that cup of coffee down, turn off the Hollyoaks omnibus and do it now.

The thought of old age is scary. We don’t know what’s ahead of us. Old age with good health and faculties intact is a whole different ball game to old age without those advantages. I know, I know, 50 is the new 40 and so on. 80 is the new 70, ha ha. The fact is there is a vast range of 70 year olds and 80 year olds. The retirement age could go creeping up more and more and who knows where it will come to rest? Many older people are amazingly sprightly in mind and body…and some are not.

Have we thought this through? Does a 69 year old really want to be plastering or mending a roof? We don’t all sit in nice warm offices and even those that do will have to cope with new technology as it rolls out and it will keep coming because it always does. This isn’t meant to be patronising, just realistic. Thousands of older people will cope with whatever is thrown at them, but many won’t and whilst I’m in the mood for brutal facts, here’s another one.

Why are we doing this? The reason the government is doing this is because we’re living too long. Someone has to pay for this. Something has to be done. This, unfortunately, might be a temporary situation. Go into any city centre late at night and you’ll see an astonishing capacity for alcohol. Fat and salt drenched processed food and lack of exercise will do the rest. There is a whole generation, unless they can be persuaded otherwise, doing everything they can to not live to a ripe old age. Brutal but true. Obviously, this is a worrying situation and an unwelcome antidote to the problem of caring for an ageing population.

So, here I’ll be, still working at nearly 67, or maybe they’ll put it up again. And again. And again. I’ll just slave over my keyboard, messing up the keys with my drool, until my arthritic fingers can’t take anymore and my brain longs for respite. Then they can put me out to pasture. It used to be all fields round here y’know…..

Android Anti-Malware Software Not Catching Malware

It isn’t a good time to be a user of Android. Not only is Google being sued by two separated individuals (one for invasion of privacy on his phone after Google’s new ‘privacy’ policy, the other for being caught by a Google camera for Streetview while urinating in his garden), it is also being sued by BT, Microsoft and Apple. Not only is the search giant itself constantly plagued with trouble, so too is its mobile operating system Android.

It’s no secret that Android has more than its fair share of malware and ‘trouble’ apps in its Market – giving a bad name to open-source software, although in reality it’s nothing to do with Android being open-source (which can be only be claimed in the most tenuous way) but Google’s “we don’t really give a shit, we’re only in it for the advertising anyway” approach.

Users concerned about rogue apps would install one of the various anti-malware apps available in the same way PC users install anti-virus. But recent tests found that two-thirds of the anti-malware scanners available for Android aren’t up to the job, including Comodo, McAfee, NetQin and Bullguard.

AV-Test put 41 separate malware scanners through testing, and almost two-thirds (66%) are unreliable and not to be trusted to do their job. How unreliable? Of the 618 types of malware tested, the scanners picked up less than 65%. The ones that are up to the job are the professional packages that we expect to work, and they caught over 90% of the Android malware that they were exposed to – Dr Web, Lookout, Zoner, Kaspersky, Ikarus, F-Secure and Avast.

There were also those products that scored better than 65% but less than 90%, and again these are names we expect to do well catching malware – AVG, ESET, Norton/Symantec and Webroot among them.

In addition to that, there were some that scored less than 40%, and while none of them are from recognised software makers, most of them failed to acknowledge that a week-known Trojan had been opened, let alone finding anything during a routine scan.

The problem with these results is the sheer amount of malware targeting Android, and thus its large amount of users. According to AV-Test there were over 11,000 different types of Android malware, and to give a context of how quickly that number has appeared, there were only 2,000 at the end of October 2011. The malware includes phishing and banking Trojans, spyware, SMS fraud Trojans, fake installers and premium diallers, and with it all lurking in the Market, the very least you want (if not a new operating system) is a reliable anti-malware scanner.

 

As if it isn’t enough that Google can’t even keep track of what’s entering its Market, it appears it can’t even be trusted to properly code its own software, as it is revealed that there is a weakness in Android phones that makes it possible for attackers to record phone calls secretly, monitor location data and gain access to other private data – without the user even knowing.

According to a paper written by researchers from the North Caroline State University, Android phones by HTC, Samsung, Motorola and Google contain code that grant powerful capabilities to apps that are not trusted, and that the “explicit capability leaks” circumvent key security defences Android has that require users to give permission to apps to access personal information and functions, such as location and text messages. Part of Android’s appeal is its customisation and that the hardware vendors can add their own ‘skin’ and services to the basic model provided by Google, yet it is these very customisations that make the weakness possible. The researchers stated that, “We believe these results demonstrate that capability leaks constitute a tangible security weakness for many Android smartphones in the market today…Particularly, smartphones with pre-loaded apps tend to be more likely to have explicit capability leaks.”

The researchers’ tests found that the HTC EVO 4G was the most vulnerable, leaking eight functions that include text messages, audio recorded and precise geographic location finder. The second most vulnerable was the HTC Legend with six leaks – making HTC a particular manufacturer to avoid. The Samsung Epic 4G has three leaks, including the ability to clear applications and data from the phone. Part of the problem is that the Android Market does not perform any security checks on the applications that come pre-bundled with certain phones; Google’s way to deal with this was the permission-based security model – where users have to agree to an app’s wants and needs before it runs for the first time. However, the enhancements supplied by the manufacturers offer a way to get around this security feature. According to the researchers, Google and Motorola (now owned by Google), have confirmed these vulnerabilities. By contrast, HTC and Samsung “have been really slow in responding to, if not ignoring, our reports/inquiries.”

The researchers who found this problem are the same ones that found other security vulnerabilities in Android, including the presence of at least twelve malicious apps in the Market. The apps, which stole data, remained in the Market for months and were downloaded hundreds of thousands of times before they were removed, which only happened after the researchers informed Google.

Are these concerns over privacy reason enough to avoid Android?

 

UFC Update

     WELCOME FIGHT FANS

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP 15 is kicking off this week and will be shown on the FX channel. This season the UFC have called out to LIGHTWEIGHTS and WELTERWEIGHTS. Former UFC stars JAMIE YAGER, BLAS AVENA  and BELLATOR even turned up to audition, how cool is that? The coaches are DOM CRUZ and URIJAH FABER who will be fighting in July on the same card as the finalists.

It looks like submission specialist FRANK MIR is going to fight CAIN VELASQES for the number one heavyweight title contender spot. FRANK’S last fight was spectacular, breaking NOQUEIRA’S arm with a submission hold. I would love FRANK to be champ again the guy is a legend and been around for years.

UFC PRESIDENT DANA WHITE has said he does not have any issues with RAMPAGE following reports in the press after his defeat by BADER.
The next big UFC event is 145; the full line-up is not yet known but the main event will be JONES and EVANS which we cannot wait for in late april.

BRITISH MMA
For in the UK and around the globe my next story will be interviewing some amateur and professional fighters on video for you all to see. Featuring:
LEE AMBLER
RICKY CAMPBELL
AND MANY MORE

So please do not miss that as the lads are top athletes. They train in Medway, Kent in the UK. To join the discussion, leave a comment or join our Facebook group ‘cageamateursuk’ and follow @cageamateursuk