Mark Sheehan has a good post up on Practical Ethics about the issue of informed consent and embryonic stem cell research. I’m not sure that the issue of consent here is particularly important: when you consider that an embryo being used for stem cell research is basically heading for the dustbin anyway. Yes, in an ideal world, it would probably be better to get permission from the parent of the embryo, but it seems far less of a concern than consent issues in other areas of bioethics - although, no doubt, for those “OMG embryos are human beings!!!1” people, it’s the most important thing ever.
California couple face sixty-two felony offences for child abuse after many years of tying their children up and torturing them. As Pam points out, it’s a straight couple. Funnily enough, so was the Josef Fritzl case. Does rather put pay to the propaganda of ‘family values’ perpetrated by the ‘think of the children’ brigade.
Murder reforms
I haven’t written yet about the murder law reforms here in Britain. The Guardian describe it as follows: People who kill their partners after years of abuse would be able to use a new defence that they had acted in response to extreme “words and conduct”, under government plans to change the law on murder.
This part is to change the law to avoid situations like those in R v. Thornton and R v. Ahluwalia (I would like to link you to the original material, but it’s hidden inside the corporate-owned databases and law reports, rather than on the open, public Internet). The reform would also make infidelity no longer count as a valid provocation defence.
The murder laws do need reform, but I am very much unsure about these changes. I think instead that the government should reform the murder laws so that judges can have more flexibility in sentencing: either through introducing degrees of murder, as is done in the United States, or by simply getting rid of the mandatory sentence and having flexible sentencing guidelines.
If, like me, you happen to play video games and if those long hours in front of Grand Theft Auto and Sonic and Knuckles haven’t turned you into a violent killer (which, according to certain segments of the media and government establishment, is the only outcome), you may wish to participate in this public consultation on video game censorship. My response? We should disband the BBFC and sell games and films in the same way as we sell books. If, as the reports say, children can’t tell fantasy from reality, then that applies just as much to Harry Potter as it does to Ghost Recon. Anyway, in an age of BitTorrent, I’m not really sure what the point of film and game certificates.
Morality requires religion
CNN: An evangelical preacher killed his wife several years ago and stuffed her body in a freezer after she caught him abusing their daughter, according to police and court documents.
(Via PZ)
How not to do JavaScript. Still, at least crappy JavaScript is keeping people away from a website that encourages tobacco usage.
