When You Walk Through A Storm......

Looking at the posters for Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd ,I was , like others , amused to see Big Ben , looming outside his attic window a good 50 years before it was built . Similarly, I think we all enjoyed Robin Hood and his “ Saracen” stalker , alighting at Dover and walking to Hadrian’s wall in a stout days yomp .The spirit if Tony Curtis’s ,“Yonder Lies the castle of my fodder”, is alive and well in Hollywood we murmur ,chuckling in that evil, way the English always employ , in Hollywood .

Now what I `m doing here is that Vicar thing , I `m going to be tediously sententious any minute now but I `m creeping up on it in the manner of “What’s the time Mr. Wolf “ . It will take constant vigilance to spot the elegant segue ….

Right then , morality ( Did you notice ?).Like the above examples it is a question of the right proportion . Jane Austen`s thematic polyphonies lean heavily on this metaphor . A rightness in art a rightness in society a rightness in manners and morals. The study of moral philosophy might be termed the study of what we ‘ought’ to do. If I believe in the immortal soul then I ‘ought ‘to see life as not defined by its flesh but by its creation. I ‘ought’ to feel abortion is a form of murder and I ought to etc……. This is actually the case, hence the dance macabre when Liberals suggest early abortion is made easier, and Conservatives are almost obliged to approve, having borrowed medical rags they secretly find uncomfortable and thin.

The problem with this “ought to” business is that it is not two dimensional and unless you have things in the right ‘proportion’ you will get lost. . Moral decisions have fewer signposts. Transport planning may yield a chaotic infrastructure provides a clue but in the flat featureless plain the modern man surveys confronted with right and wrong , he lacks the ancestral compass. Secular and floundering he is aware of competing questions but has no language or system to resolve them… .Here is a recent moral conundrum:

Should sexual orientation be used against prospective adopters ?
Should sexual orientation be the only factor which it is illegal to hold against a prospective adopter ?
Should the government have the right to impose on religious organisations as to the rightnes of minority sexuality
Should the government sacrifice lives of 1500 children stuck in care by creating a system complex and slow enough masticate on every conceivable risk
Should a member of that Government avoid the problem and go to America (Milliband)

Or should teenagers be obliged to endure sex education as provided by the state so there are none to adopt ? . Polly Toynbee , the woman from Italy she says yes! There may be a case that such a programme would reduce early pregnancy. It sounds logical . There should be relationship counselling on a compulsory nationwide basis , morning after pills and greater access to early abortion. Polly pours scorn on the “Sex Is For Marriage “ Group by quoting numerous members of her political coterie who happen to occupy bodies producing authoritative reports . Yet ,“Sex Is For Marriage “, would cut out STD`s were anyone to listen and our European record in teenage pregnancies accompanies a socially Liberal country . I have a dim sense that we need to recreate the moral responsibility of the past but in a new way. I have doubts about continuing the factory farming methods employed to pre-mature children for the market. How can she be so doubt free ,certain enough to impose on other people’s children ?Her own went to Public school so can she understand how sex operates in the bog standard London Comp and how seriously these ”Lessons “might be taken ?

Science pushes us further away from the comfort of daily pragmatism . Modern man expected quite the reverse and he is almost enraged and having to confront old problems . Should I abort a child late because it has a cleft palette as a “serious handicap” ?. Embryos with squints can be destroyed , parents can select IVF babies to be saviour donors to their sibling with blood disorders . How does the baby feel about that ? If you could grow a human with no mind and farm the body , should you ?More than 100 babies with minor disabilities were aborted in one region over a three year period ,54 babies with club feet , 37 cleft palettes, 26 extra I webbed toes in the South West between 2002 -2005 .way above the national average . Do you find this troubling , I do ?

I have tried to describe a state dimly lit uncertainly and groped unsuccessfully for the door , but there are more hazards yet. How can we know if we have the right perspective when we cannot ‘feel’ what it`s like to be in another’s shoes. I am ending with a story on the front page of the Mail where I have some experience of how it feels :

IVF clinics were ordered to cut multiple pregnancies by up to a half to day. Walter Merrick., head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said “maximum safety means one child at a time , it cannot be right for numbers of children ending up in neo natal units just because of decisions made in the treatment designed to help the mother conceive “

Here is the problem.126 babies die each year as a result of being part of multiple births. It is dangerous for the mother and , no doubt a bad thing ……So should the planting of multiple embryos be guidelined out of business an if not why not ? Well here are the reasons why not

Many come to IVF desperate and having to pay for themselves
Two healthy Embryos double your chance
Many can only afford one or two cycles at about £10,000 a throw and the three cycles you are suppsed to get is not available in many post codes ( Not at all if you have a child )
They have a roughly one in four chance of success per go with multiple embryos
One in four double embryos implantations results in twins
So without the second chance the success rate would be drastically reduced
Would be parents are more than aware of the risk to themselves and this cannot be a factor
The increased risk to the child is an increased risk to a child who would otherwise have had no chance of life at all.

I see there are risks and I see there are competing claims of the new born child who has , lets not forget , a very good chance indeed of a life otherwise nonexistent . I think I have looked at this from every angle and I find it a heartless and poor moral direction. What strikes me moreover is this . With such desperately subtle and difficult balancing to be done who the hell gave Doctors the right to decide for us all. ?Its like leaving a cannibal to baby-sit and if I am sure of one thing it is this .The faux medical language in which arguments of principles are couched should be ditched and replaced with the real issues they thinly disguise . Desperate for any sign modern man clings to the white coated chap who likes bossing us around .This is absolutely , “wrong “

Thanks for listening if you did,go on treat yourself to this . http://www.desertwebcenter.com/YouNeverWalkAlone.html