Channel 4 is currently mid-way through a series of short talking-head films on the question of whether organ donation should be compulsory: as I write this, two have been broadcast, with another five to come.

The first one is by John Harris, rehearsing familiar arguments about the permissibility of mandated donation (as he did here) and live-donor organ sales (as he and Charles Erin did here).  I find myself thinking that he’s probably right, and straightforwardly so.

But I’ve really enjoyed Derek House’s contribution; sadly for him, my enjoyment is almost entirely of the pointing-and-laughing sort.  House objects to mandatory donation – or, by the sound of it, any donation at all – and explains this in terms of his being a Jehovah’s Witness.  He has two lines of argument against transplantation, and one really strange line that he thinks is an argument but is just bizarre.

Let’s get the bizarreness out of the way.  He has a couple of anecdotes about people whose personalities have changed after an organ transplant.  So, er…

Hmph.

OK.  Moving on.

The first of the more substantial arguments – comparatively more substantial, you understand – is an appeal to the Bible.  He basically says that an organ donation is “very close” to what the Bible says about blood.  (I’m not going to give time references: the whole thing’s only 110 seconds long.)  A heart transplant, he claims, is very like blood being given.  Why is that a problem?  Well, a quick scout around Google takes me to the Watchtower Society; it would appear that there’s a few verses in the Bible that refer to blood, and these are interpreted as referring to transfusion as well.  So the argument would seem to be that transplantation is a bit like blood transfusion, and that that’s a bit like a few things that worried a small group of ancients.  Or, put another way: if (1) you’re satisfied that a small group of ancients was correct to be worried about A, and (2) you’re satisfied that A is similar to B, and (3) you’re satisfied that B is similar to C, then that’s enough to show that (4) we ought to be worried about C.  And if C is the receipt of a transplanted organ, (5) we ought to be worried about D, the donation of an organ for a life-saving transplant.  No, I don’t understand the leap from receipt to donation either.

I don’t doubt that House is sincere in his beliefs.  But: really.  That’s just lamentably poor reasoning by anyone’s standard.

The second argument is that transplantation “is clearly against nature”.  Presumably, being against nature makes something wrong.  Let’s just ignore that this message is delivered by means of a device fabricated from materials not found in nature that allows instant communication with people thousands of miles away.  It’d be petty to point that out.

(Thanks to Aeron Haworth for the pointer.)

This was supposed to be embargoed, but there’ve been enough leaks to make me think I can go public with it: news has emerged today that the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele (PEAK) is facing the axe, as is the Keele Philosophy programme.

A Senate Paper detailing the proposed cuts is widely available, and people outside Keele can view it here.  The general gist of it is that most of PEAK’s activity is to go, with a small amount absorbed into the Law School.  The Philosophy programme is to go as well.  It also looks as though the problems faced by PEAK and the Philosophy department are attributable to a combination of the recession and bad management by the University; hardly unique, hardly incurable, and hardly grounds to close the academic department.

As far as I know, the decision hasn’t been finalised yet – I believe that the relevant meeting will be in April – so there’s still time to do something about it.

Any decision to shut PEAK would be senseless.  I’m informed that, not so long ago, the department provided Keele with 2% of its overall income.  But even if you put that aside, PEAK is an academic gem, and any half-sane university would do everything it could to keep it going.  PEAK boasts an absurdly high concentration of talent, with world-standard researchers in reproductive ethics, public health ethics, and research ethics (to name just three fields).  Its web of alumni and former staff demonstrates just how successful it has been over the years at attracting and honing talent, and sending it back out in to the world.

I have personal reasons to be very attached to PEAK.  At the start of my career, the Centre went out of its way to provide me with an office, library access, and enough teaching to keep me solvent, and did so for long enough that I could cobble together enough publications to stand a chance of getting my current gig in Manchester.  The three years I spent there were a joy.

And, of course, my co-blogger David Hunter is based at Keele.

This is a very bad day for Keele University, and a very bad day for bioethics in the UK, if not the world.

Facebook groups for both have been set up here (for PEAK) and here (for Philosophy).  If you would like to express your opinion of the proposal (politely please) the VC can be contacted here:
Prof. Nick Foskett, VC: n.h.foskett@vco.keele.ac.uk ; you could cc: Prof. Rama Thirunamachandran, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost: r.thirunamachandran@vco.keele.ac.uk, and Prof. David Shepherd, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences d.g.shepherd@humss.keele.ac.uk – both of whom are signatories to the proposed restructuring.  Please, though, do keep things polite.

(Thanks to Andrew Willetts for the Senate Paper link)

I mentioned a few days ago the proposed law in South Dakota that would provide a defence of justifiable homicide for to those accused of killing abortion doctors.  That proposal was shelved… but reports keep coming in of proposed laws, each of which is crazier than the last.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a big game of lunacy poker being played over there. more…

I’m a bit bowled over by this.  There’s a Bill currently before the South Dakota legislature that would, if passed, change the scope of justifiable homicide laws.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable homicide to provide for the protection of certain unborn children.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. That § 22-16-34 be amended to read as follows:
22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.
Section 2. That § 22-16-35 be amended to read as follows:
22-16-35. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.

The underlining’s in the original.  The proposed section 22-16-34 seems to me to say that it’s justifiable homicide for  A to kill B if A thinks B is about to kill them – but also that it’s justifiable for A to kill B if A is pregnant and thinks that B has laced her tea with abortifacient.  Well, I suppose that some kind of punishment is in order… but killing?  Could you not just tip the tea away and phone the police?

So that’s weird.  But the next section is jaw-dropping.  On the assumption – which seems reasonable – that being aborted could be seen as a “great personal injury” to a foetus in the eyes of the law (and being killed is a great personal injury if anything is), it seems to me that the proposed section 22-16-35 pretty much says that it’d be legally OK to kill a doctor if you believed that he was about to perform an abortion for your wife, mother, mistress, or servant, irrespective of her views on the matter.  You might also get away with killing that wife, mother, mistress or servant if the abortion is intentional.

Put another way: it may not be criminal to kill someone for doing something perfectly legal, and which may be medically required.  Say what you like about the rights and wrongs of abortion – but that’s just nuts.

(via PZ Myers.  More coverage available via Mother Jones.)

Here’s a short story about the evolution of modern science: we used to understand very little about the world, and lacked the means to understand it.  But we wanted to know how it worked, and we invented things like gods and demons to explain phenomena.  As we gradually learned more and more about the way the world works, the god-and-demon beliefs got ditched and replaced by better – that is, more truth-tracking – beliefs.  Some of these truth-tracking beliefs were actually true, too.  Sometimes this progress is halted or even temporarily reversed, perhaps as a result of poverty or trauma – think of the widespread belief in witches in parts of West Africa – but the trend is to abandon the supernatural; and the supernatural has no place in modern medicine.

The story is a bit simple, and a bit simplistic, but it’s the kind of thing that a lot of people accept as being, at least in essence, correct – and trivially correct.  Sophisticated people don’t do demons; we know there’re things we don’t know, but that’s why we have science; and the fact that we don’t know why x happened doesn’t warrant the belief that the spirits did it.

Why am I rehearsing all this?  Well, because Asleepius over at Religion versus Medicine has drawn my attention to a fairly remarkable document on the Christian Medical Fellowship’s website that appears to take seriously the idea that demons might well play a part in explaining some disorders, particularly in psychiatry.

No, really.  Look: more…

Right: so I understand that hospitals sometimes feel the need to raise revenue, and I understand the idea that resources shouldn’t be left idle – an unused ward represents wasted money.  I also fully understand that hospital wards have provided a rich source of smut over the years, some of which has been almost entertaining.

Still, when the NHS’ internal market was proposed, I don’t think that this was planned…

A “big budget” porn film was shot in a London hospital when it hired out one of its wards to a film company.

The movie generated “substantial income” for the hospital, Tory MP Penny Mordaunt said.

Ms Mordaunt, Portsmouth North MP, was speaking during a House of Commons debate on improving transparency in government accounting, on Monday.

That’s from the Beeb.  The Sydney Morning Herald has the same story.  The hospital trust in question has, so far, not said anything about the claim.  I’m going to try to restrain the childish giggling for a moment so that I can offer a serious comment. more…

I think that it’s worth pointing out that the way the media have handled mephedrone has been generally pathetic.  This is not wholly a surprise, because the way the media handle any drugs story tends towards the pathetic. more…

Since we’re technically still in the holiday period, have a bit more silliness.

This concerns a scheme that is a supposed to disincentivise drink-driving.  A funeral home in Rome, Georgia, is offering…  Oh, what the hell.  I’ll let the local paper, the Rome News-Tribune, tell the story:

Between now and noon on Thursday, drivers can visit McGuire, Jennings and Miller Funeral Home on North Broad Street and sign a contract stating they plan to drink or use drugs and drive on New Year’s Eve. If they are then killed in a wreck while operating a vehicle on Thursday, the funeral home will bury them for free.

I’m not sure that this is really the disincentive it could be.  After all, funerals are expensive, so it might be the best thing all round for those who are worried about passing on that cost to neck a bottle of bourbon and get behind the wheel…

Tough luck if you’re killed driving home just after midnight, too.

Is the heading of this article in the BBC news today. The article argues that too few patients are volunteering to participate in a particular research trial.

more…

If you look at the comments thread in the post about Kerrie Wooltorton, you’ll see that there’s been an interesting debate between me and someone who calls himself “Dr No”.  I don’t think that No and I will ever see eye-to-eye on quite a lot of stuff, but, then again, I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things with the people whose offices are on the same corridor as mine, so there’s no surprise there.

Anyway – there’s a link to No’s own blog in one of the comments, and it, should you follow it, it’ll take you here.  You know the aphorism about pictures being able to represent a thousand words?  Here’s a picture: more…