There and Back Again

[steepholm]

I went to visit my mother yesterday, and bought a Daily Telegraph for the train journey (only for the crossword - honest!). Anyway, after I'd given up on the puzzle I read this piece about the Equality Bill, which several of the Bishops in the House of Lords want to amend so that people will be able to refuse to do things that conflict with their conscience without being penalized in terms of employment. Thus:

Peers claimed that the Equality Bill should be altered to allow people to act according to their conscience when providing goods and services, in the same way that doctors are allowed to refuse to carry out abortions.

Bishop Scott-Joynt, the fifth most senior cleric in the Church of England, pointed out that similar exemptions had been requested but refused in the case of civil partnerships. A Christian registrar, Lilian Ladele, lost a case for unfair dismissal after she refused to carry out the ceremonies for homosexual couples.

The bishop said in a debate in the House of Lords: “The implication of the [conscience] amendment is that each of us... is bound to work as hard as we can to hold the whole range of different people's rights, because there is a sense around that some rights are better than others."

This "some rights are better than others" line strikes me as very unconvincing, not least because I can think of many examples of people's consciences conflicting with their work duties where no one else's rights are affected at all. For example, a vegan who works in an abbatoir, whose conscience won't let them be involved in the killing of animals. A pacifist in the SAS, whose conscience won't let them kill people. A person who works for Huntingdon Life Sciences but is against vivisection. Pacifists, vegans and anti-vivisectionists are all people of conscience for whom I have the greatest respect, even more than for those who believe homosexuality is a sin. So, would the bishops argue that all the people in these examples should be allowed to keep their jobs without penalty? And if not, why not? Am I missing some vital part of their argument?





How times change! On the platform of Romsey station this morning I saw a poster advertising my old comp, though why a state school needs to advertise is beyond me. I see it's changed its name, from plain "Romsey School" to "The Romsey School" - presumably to sound more upmarket. There's a picture of some typical students, too, which, despite the town's being so white that visitors sometimes suffer snow blindness, tries for a multiracial image. "So that's what a black person looks like," is what I imagine the two kids either side of him are thinking. The school has even sprouted a mission statement:

The Romsey School is a community that aims for all...

• To experience and enjoy new challenges and opportunities


• To have a sense of belonging and pride in our school


• To treat others with fairness, kindness and respect


• To make healthy, informed and responsible choices


• To be able to cope with life's ups and downs


• To have a sense of awe and wonder


• To acquire a lifelong love of learning


• To be an active and caring citizen


• To be successful


• TO BE HAPPY

I can sign up to most of that list, but I rather wish they'd mentioned something about, say, being able to write a grammatical sentence, add up, and get some, like, you know, knowledge. But that's probably the influence of the Daily Telegraph.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Am I missing some vital part of their argument?

No, they are missing the part of the argument they only want to look at when it suits them. They would see the point about the vegan in the abattoir at once.

Re the school, the Eeyore in me thinks "being happy" is an overrated consdition, neither a right nor necessarily a permanent good, and not really the school's business either. But that's just the curmudgeon in me... though it does strike me that none of the above will get you into university (except possibly "to be successful" and what exactly does that mean in the context?)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

If the requirements of your job and of your conscience set up an indissolvable conflict, the moral course of action is to resign.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember hearing that a lot of people who work in abattoirs become vegetarians as a result. Presumably it's for reasons of health/hygiene rather than morality, or else the turnover must be very high.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

"some rights are better than others" is simply the rhetorical pose used these days to defend the traditionally privileged and protected against people who seem to threaten that privilege.

Or so say I.

Practically speaking, though, I think it's rather silly for the law to protect the people in your examples (or some of them) -- If one is against killing, one should not pursue a career in the SAS -- it's part of the job description. A vegan should not seek employment in an abbatoir, because, well, the purpose of the place is entirely incongruent with being a vegan on moral grounds.

In the case of doctors refusing to perform abortions, I have more sympathy. I do see that as a matter of conscience, and I would not require a plastic surgeon who believes that plastic surgery should be used only for reconstruction and repairs to do boob jobs and face lifts. Doctors are allowed to specialize, after all.

The case of Lilian Ladele, on the other hand, I find much more problematic: she was employed in a position, and the laws changed so that her job would require her to do something she found morally reprehensible. She refused to do that job, and was sacked. I think that's entirely fair, BUT, I think that it would also have been prudent to offer her a transfer to a position where she did not have to make a choice. If she had then chosen to remain in her position with its newly-expanded duties, she would then be obliged to do them or lose her job.

But ultimately, I think that there is a difference between choosing a job that one already knows is incompatible with one's beliefs (no protection) and having one's job changed so that one must make a choice (should probably be some sort of protection).


Having said all that, I have in the back of my head that there was a time when the laws changed to allow non-whites and women to work in certain jobs, and I'd fight tooth and nail against any such protections for existing white maile workers. It's always more complicated, isn't it?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You have a good point there about the job changing around Lilian Ladele, and to that extent I have some sympathy with her. However, the bishops are not proposing to change the law only to cover that fairly unusual situation, as I understand it, but rather wanting a general opt-out for anyone who finds that the duties of their job doesn't accord with their conscience. I suspect they haven't thought this one through.

And yes, there's no reason as far as I can see that this provision couldn't be used by a sincere racist to "opt out" of having to provide services to black customers/clients/students, etc.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I think the proposed law is horribly wrong-headed. But I'm not entirely sure that the principle is a bad one -- after all, we allow conscientious objection from military service, and I think that's a good thing.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm all in favour of allowing conscientious objection (I was raised a Quaker, after all), but in that case one doesn't usually insist on being allowed to stay in the army. Similarly, a registrar who refuses to carry out the functions of a registrar on conscience grounds should certainly be allowed to do so. However, it's not so obvious that they should continue in that job.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Agreed, absolutely.

[sheenaghpugh]

but in that case one doesn't usually insist on being allowed to stay in the army

Now and again, though... J K Jerome, in WW1, did a Private Godfrey; stayed in and drove an ambulance in France.

The swapping-responsibilities solution, IMO, doesn't take account of other constraints. If some docs refuse to do abortions, others could find themselves doing little but, and may reasonably object that they aren't getting a full spectrum of experience. A mag editor I used to know had difficulty getting male reviewers to review books by women. The result wa that his female reviewers, and we weren't many, got nothing but books by women to review. Why should the blokes have had the choice?

PS

[sheenaghpugh]

should have made clear, of course, that the male reviewers weren't refusing to review women on grounds of conscience - they just didn't like writing by women.

Re: PS

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Or thought they didn't because they never read any... see also the phenomenon of academic conferences where men and women talk about male writers and only women talk about women writers.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a good point: some of these jobs are zero-sum games. How that consideration plays off against a legitimate desire to specialize, or simply to recognize that there are some aspects of the job for which you have more talent, is a difficult question. But I've no patience with your "just didn't like writing by women" colleagues: that's just sexism wearing a gauze-thin veil of aesthetics.

Btw, Jerome's wasn't a case of conscientious objection, as I understand it. He actually tried to join the army but was rejected on age grounds (he was 55 at the start of the war), and drove an ambulance as the next best thing. But yes, he'd have had quite a few COs amongst his colleagues, I imagine.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Well, there is "lifelong love of learning". Mathematics fills me with awe and wonder, because I cannot even add up straight, and grammatical writing makes me very happy.

Seriously, though, after another week of supervising student teachers on placement (I go around and around singing miserere mei, deus) I think mission statements like this are the well-intentioned flagstones of the road to hell. They reinforce the belief -- very common among educators, especially ed. dept people, that education is something in and of itself, separate from any sort of content. I've seen so many lessons where classes full of rowdy children are managed expertly, but nothing is conveyed. That's not school. It's open prison.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wondered about "lifelong love of learning", but found it all to easy to parse as "Trying to catch with all the stuff they didn't teach me at school because they were banging on about citizenship and positivity."

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"all to easy".

Sometimes I wish I had a paid account, and could cover my shame...

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Is the figleaf worth $20 a year?

I suspected something similar. The termagant in me is exercised by misspelt and ungrammatical posters and displays being put up on classroom walls uncorrected. How can you learn when you're surrounded by Teh Wrong?