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• Response
  John Harris
  Published on: 18 May 2017
• Setting the record straight
  Alexandra J Plows
  Published on: 18 May 2017

• Published on: 18 May 2017

  Response

  • John Harris, Sir David Alliance Professor of Bioethics
  • Other Contributors:
    • Soren Holm

  The Editors are pleased to have received this letter from “people against eugenics” (PAE) and that some of those behind this group have now identified themselves. It is also good to note that Alexandra Plows, Chris Goodey, David King, Rachel Hurst OBE and Tara Flood are happy to take responsibility for the leaflet distributed at the Royal Society meeting and are opposed to smear tactics.

  The anonymous leaflet...

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  The Editors are pleased to have received this letter from “people against eugenics” (PAE) and that some of those behind this group have now identified themselves. It is also good to note that Alexandra Plows, Chris Goodey, David King, Rachel Hurst OBE and Tara Flood are happy to take responsibility for the leaflet distributed at the Royal Society meeting and are opposed to smear tactics.

  The anonymous leaflet handed out by some of the above outside the Royal Society shows clearly the agenda of PAE. It contains 9 paragraphs of text, 6 of them containing highly inflammatory personal attacks on the speakers. We cannot answer for all the people named but since one of the targets is one of the Editors of this journal we have some detailed knowledge of the accuracy of the claims made by PAE and of their methods.

  The leaflet made the following claims: “Speakers like Harris… and others clearly state that they wish to prevent people seen to be a ‘burden’ on society from being born, those whose lives have – according to them – no value; Downs’ kids, disabled kids, even kids with bad teeth. This is unspeakable. People’s lives have intrinsic worth” The authors of the pamphlet went on to claim that “John Harris…believe(s) that people should be allowed to kill disabled babies, since they are supposedly less than fully human”

  We cannot speak for the others attacked in the leaflet, but we are sure that none of them would dissent from the following claim of PAE: “You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking or a Paralympics medal winner to “prove” that disabled people can achieve great things, contribute to society and have quality of life; people have the right to be valued as a human being.” All decent people would assent to this. It is therefore interesting to speculate why the authors of this document seek tendentiously to imply that any do not?

  We can however state categorically that John Harris has never “clearly” (or even obscurely) stated that he wishes “to prevent people seen to be a ‘burden’ on society from being born, those whose lives have… no value.” Nor has he ever said that “Down’s kids, disabled kids, even kids with bad teeth” have lives of “no value”, nor does he believe or think any such thing. Quite the reverse. Harris has always championed the rights of parents to have children with disabilities if that is their wish and his theory of personhood, developed in two books and many papers, clearly shows that all people, including kids, have intrinsic value regardless of disability or of whether or not they might be thought a burden to society. Harris does draw a distinction between persons with intrinsic value and some humans, like embryos and fetuses, who lack intrinsic value. But in this he is fully aligned with the current Law of the United Kingdom and, on their own admission, with PAE, who tell us they support the right to reproductive autonomy and abortion. Abortion entails the legitimacy of killing some human individuals, namely embryos and fetuses and the law of the United Kingdom and most other states accepts this. In Harris’s theory and in everything he has said or written, disability or burdensomeness to society plays no role at all in the analysis of why some human individuals like embryos and fetuses may in certain circumstances be killed, Harris thinks and has repeatedly said that such considerations are irrelevant to questions of value. Presumably members of PAE have beliefs and theories as to what permits the killing of human individuals in some circumstances and it would be interesting to know what precisely they believe justifies these sorts of killings since they openly endorse them.

  It is true that Harris believes that we have moral reasons to create the healthiest possible children and hence to prefer to create children without disabilities. This he has argued in great detail in many places including in the pages of this journal in the context of a debate with a number of writers who take a very different view and who have received considerable space in these pages to argue their position. In no sense therefore can this journal or its editors present or past be considered partisan in debates about disability.

  There are many other inaccurate claims in the leaflet authored by Plows et al. but at least one more should be clearly rebutted.

  They say “Harris…believe(s) that people should be allowed to kill disabled babies since they are supposedly less than fully human”. Harris does not believe that people should be “allowed to kill disabled babies”, nor that these babies are “less than fully human”. Cited in evidence of this claim is the following quote attributed to Harris and taken not from any of his writings on this subject, but from a newspaper account of what he is reported as saying in answer to a question at a meeting. The remark is: “I don’t think infanticide is always unjustifiable”, and it was not made in the context of a discussion about disability . As it happens this remark as far as it goes, correctly represents his view, but note this is far from claiming or believing that “people should be allowed to kill babies”, let alone that they should be allowed to kill disabled babies. Consider, many people think euthanasia or medically assisted dying is “justifiable”, which is why doctors who assist people to die from humanitarian concerns are seldom punished on conviction in the courts. But it is far from this to claim that those who believe euthanasia to be in some circumstances justifiable think that “people should be allowed to kill adults”. It is difficult to think that Plows et al. are unaware of these distinctions. Failure to make relevant distinctions radically alters the accuracy of their claims. It is therefore legitimate to ask what motivated them to say in writing anything so inflammatory and unjustified? Many people, including the Editors of this journal think that murder is also “justifiable”. For example, it would have surely been “justifiable” for anyone to murder Hitler in 1943. If we believe this it doesn’t follow that we believe that “murder should be allowed”.

  A final point. In their letter to the JME, PAE label Holm and Harris as “avowed libertarians”. This claim would be impossible for anyone who had knowledge of the work of Holm. Holm’s first paper published in an English language journal is a criticism of one of the most prominent libertarian’s in medical ethics , and several of his recent papers show that he has not changed his mind on this issue .

  If the persons behind PAE wish to be taken seriously they might start by attempting to espouse minimal standards of evidence and argument.

  References

  (1) See John Harris. “Is there a coherent social conception of disability?” in The Journal Of Medical Ethics Vol 26. No 2. April 2000. 95 -101. “One principle and three fallacies of disability studies” in Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 27. No.6. December 2001. 383-388. and “One Principle and a fourth fallacy of disability Studies” in Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 28. No. 3. June 2002. 204.

  (2) Solveig Magnus Reindal, “Disability, Gene-therapy and Eugenics – Comments to John Harris” in The Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 26 No. 2. 2000 89-94.. Christopher Newell “The social nature of disability, disease and genetics: a response to Gillam, Persson,Draper and Chadwick” Journal of Medical Ethics Vol.25 No. 2. April 1999172-175. And Tom Koch “Disability and difference: balancing social and physical constructions”, RB Jones “Impairment, disability and handicap – old fashioned concepts”!, S.D. Edwards “Prevention of disability of grounds of suffering” all in Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 27. No 6. December 2001 pp370-383

  (3) Holm S. The peacable pluralistic society and the question of persons. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 1989; 13:379 86.

  (4) Holm S. The ethical case against stem cell research. Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics 2003; 12(4): 372-383. Holm S. The creation lottery and method in bioethics: a comment on Savulescu and Harris. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. 2004;13(3):283-287. Holm S. Does the End Sanctify the Means. In: Honnefelder L, Lanzerath D (eds.). Cloning in Biomedical Research and Reproduction. Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2003: 427-436.

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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• Published on: 18 May 2017

  Setting the record straight

  • Alexandra J Plows, civil society
  • Other Contributors:
    • Chris Goodey, David King, Rachel Hurst OBE, Tara Flood

  In the December 2004 issue of the Journal, Soren Holm and John Harris mount an impassioned attack on People Against Eugenics (PAE). They accuse us of being 'shadowy' and 'undemocratic', and of attempting to disrupt a conference held at the Royal Society, thereby stifling legitimate debate. Professors Holm and Harris' attack is both misinformed and misguided and we would like to hereby set the record straight.

  Fi...

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  In the December 2004 issue of the Journal, Soren Holm and John Harris mount an impassioned attack on People Against Eugenics (PAE). They accuse us of being 'shadowy' and 'undemocratic', and of attempting to disrupt a conference held at the Royal Society, thereby stifling legitimate debate. Professors Holm and Harris' attack is both misinformed and misguided and we would like to hereby set the record straight.

  Firstly, some matters of fact. Standing publicly on the pavement and handing out leaflets is the opposite of shadowy, and indeed Professor Harris is personally acquainted with at least two of us. Since the protest, Professors Harris and Holm have not attempted to contact PAE. Our letters and conversations with the Royal Society did not threaten disruption. The dozen of us who stood in the rain at the beginning of the opening day did not even try to dissuade people from entering, let alone disrupt the conference. Those of us who leafleted the conference were treated by RS staff with great courtesy and consideration, for which we would like to take this opportunity to thank them. We are surprised that such avowed libertarians as Professors Holm and Harris find even this mildest possible form of political protest threatening.

  Peaceful protest is a democratic right and an important civil liberty, used by People Against Eugenics precisely because it opened up a closed- down discursive space, and enabled a perspective missing from the conference agenda - essentially a Disability Rights perspective- to be clearly heard. The protest thus redressed a democratic deficit; the debate now unfolding on the pages of this journal and elsewhere are in fact clear evidence of the efficacy of peaceful protest as a means of expressing opinions which would otherwise not have had a fair hearing. It should also be emphasised that it cost over £300 per person to register for the conference.

  Our letters to the Royal Society prior to the event questioned whether it should be letting its premises out to an organisation which claimed to be holding an academic conference and debate, but had put up a one-sided list of platform speakers with a track record of favouring human germ-line genetic engineering, even for purposes of ‘enhancement’, and/or infanticide. As a result of our letters, the Royal Society itself made its own decision to consult its lawyers, and legally indemnified itself from the conference on the basis of this legal advice, expressing unease about four talks in particular.

  The authors attribute to us the desire to do away with “reproductive choice”. This is a smear, because it attempts to turn our opposition to eugenics into a general opposition to abortion. As stated in our leaflet text: PAE supports women's right to reproductive autonomy and to have an abortion. This is a different issue however to having a “right” to choose sets of characteristics based on changing social norms. When foetuses are screened for conditions which have no cures, there are social, cultural and economic pressures forced on people to make these “choices” in an unequal power setting- the clinic. Many parents tell of pressure put on them by society or the medical establishment if they choose to keep a disabled or Downs child. Women are in the frontline of having to bear the burden of these new reproductive 'choices' [1].

  What concerns us even more than the attack on PAE is the attempt by a small group of medical ethicists and some lobbyists to promote a crude and simplistic concept of reproductive freedom and to equate eugenics with state coercion. In our view the current attempts to promote an absolutist concept of personal reproductive autonomy is in fact central to the trend towards the creation of a free-market/consumerist mode of eugenics. We are happy to debate this issue in the pages of this journal or elsewhere.

  The ethical issues surrounding reproductive technologies are indeed highly complex and necessitate an engaged and thorough public debate - such as the current HGC consultation on PGD/PND. It was precisely this lack of a balanced debate on the conference programme which triggered the PAE protest. No attempt by Professors Holm and Harris to muddy the waters over the definition of eugenics can obscure a clear differentiation between the widespread acknowledgement of complexity in the PND/PGD debate, and the pro-eugenic and elitist agenda set by many of the conference main speakers.

  The authors claim to represent “the medical ethics community”. We consider the medical ethics community to be everyone upon whom questions of (a) health, disability and disease, and (b) the issues associated with value judgements about “quality of life” impinge: that is, all human beings, rather than some elite group of professors. We are concerned that the attack on ourselves is part of an attempt to stifle democratic debate.

  People Against Eugenics came into being as a result of networking between feminists, social justice and disability rights campaigners who responded to the conference agenda as private individuals. It is an informal network of democratic citizens engaged in the debate. Those of us instrumental in participating in this peaceful and legitimate protest are signed below.

  Alexandra Plows, Chris Goodey, David King, Rachel Hurst OBE, Tara Flood

  References

  (1) The full leaflet text and press releases sent by PAE are available from peopleagainsteugenics@hotmail.com

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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