Multiculturalism

If laws and morals are unconnected what has obeying the law (or not) got to do with morality? Has it occurred to you the culture you exist in may employ, rightly or wrongly and probably imperfectly, a connection between laws and morals which you have apparently unthinkingly adopted?

Why should I think something other than that they might be valid? They might work in one context but not in another. It might take a while to see if they do work. No. I don't think children should be forcibly tested for any kind of abuse. I don't think children should be forcibly tested for drugs, either. If the victims don't cooperate, I don't think the legal system should be further victimizing them by looking up their skirts. I would consider trying an approach similar to what some jurisdictions are using for heroin addiction. Instead of imprisoning people, help them. Clean needle exchanges don't do anything to stop those horrible, horrible perverts from commiting their despicale acts, but they prevent a domino effect of related problems. I would have thought that the word "restraint" connoted a negative direction, negative to the direction they want to go, anyway. But what is negative for the police may well be positive for society.

Like the prohibition of alcohol "could be enforced"?Edited by zombie ringo, : Fixed quote.

That's a poor analogy. That would be like legalizing FGM to protect the health of the mothers, which makes no sense and I have not suggested.I'm not sure a better analogy to rape is possible, since FGM is motivated by culture and rape is not. I personally have no problem wth that. Ethically, I don't know how doctors can justify revealing their patients' particulars anyway.

So you call the laws into question, but you have no comment to make on some reasons for the law to exist? Do you have anything to say about anything in this topic? Forcibly? Who said forcibly? That's fine - but what is your answer to the question which was nothing to do with looking up victim's skirts? Again, you aren't saying anything here other than 'we should do the right thing' which is tautalogous. What help do you think should be given?Do you think parent's that get their children addicted to heroin should face no penalty? You really don't want to answer straight questions do you? You complain that I am nit-picking!Do you think cultural sensitivity ever puts a constraint on police activities to the detriment of society?

It might not make any sense - but you are the one who said maybe we should and thought this was a good contribution. Now you seem to be saying we shouldn't because it doesn't make sense. The point is to see if there is any point at which the side effects for criminalisation are better than the side effects for decriminalisation. The justifications were irrelevant to this point. It's a balancing act isn't it? Balancing patient confidentiality against justice and potential future victims' welfare. Balancing society's wellbeing with criminal's wellbeing. I don't have the answers, but I'd rather violent criminals had difficult choices rather than their victims being denied protection and justice.the UK authorities have given:

quote:

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Disclosure of personal information about a patient
without consent may be justified in the public
interest if failure to disclose may expose others to
a risk of death or serious harm...Such a situation might arise, for example, when a disclosure would be likely to assist in the
prevention, detection or prosecution of serious
crime, especially crimes against the person.
When victims of violence refuse police assistance,
disclosure may still be justified if others remain at
risk, for example, from someone who is prepared to
use weapons, or from domestic violence when
children or others may be at risk

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It goes on to say that the police are better suited to making decisions with regards to public safety and there is also a need to gather statistics to understand public safety concerns such as a raise in gun crime (which is typically targeted against other criminals such as drug dealers and smugglers).Can we at least both agree that your answer here is 600 orders of magnitude superior to the mere, 'maybe'? I mean saying 'I don't know' is clearly a more honest approach and it serves as an actual springboard for us to talk - yay! Emerg Med J 2005;22:84-86 doi:10.1136/emj.2004.016733, Reporting of gunshot wounds by doctors in emergency departments: A duty or a right? Some legal and ethical issues surrounding breaking patient confidentiality, A Frampton

quote:

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That doctors should be allowed to disclose information, even without consent, on patients who they believe are a danger to the public is supported by GMC guidelines and common law. Whether they have a duty in law to warn in the UK is less clear. A review of the Human Rights Act would suggest not, unless the future victims are identifiable. A duty to warn brings with it a duty of care imposing what for many would be an undesirable burden leaving the way open for negligence litigation when a patient commits a crime the victim feels may have been predictable. Few doctors would relish being held accountable for their patients’ crimes, and few patients would relish the effective power it would give to medical practitioners.

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I did. How else do you propose to find evdence when the victim doesn't cooperate? I guess I'm just not a penalty-oriented person. Is penalizing the parents good for the children? It might. But we don't give the police broad powers because it might have a good effect in rare cases. We narrow their powers so that it has a minimum of bad effects in most cases. Maybe you should ask better questions.

Yes, it could be enforced, it was enforced and it still is enforced in those countries whose populous actually agreed/agrees with it. Like laws agianst homosexuality, segregation and hanging sheep, when the laws do not represent the values of the people they get changed. Happily, there are very few people in Western democracies whose values include the mutilation of children.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Refresh my memory. Where did I say we should legalize FGM to protect the health of the mothers? Maybe I can clarify. I don't think violent criminals do have difficult choices though. Quite the contrary. A lot of violent crime is the result of reacting on the spur of the moment without taking consequences into account. You can't protect victims from that a priori. I'm no mathematician but I'm certainly not going to agree with that. My counter offer is 10%, pending a quantitative definition of "superior". Saying, "I don't know," is the same as saying, "Maybe."

The question you are answering does not presuppose uncooperative children. The children typically don't cooperate by not testifying against their family, not by refusing to see a medical professional. I would have thought so, yes. If parents are acting in a way detrimental to the child's welfare, especially to this degree it seems beneficial to remove children from this environment and show other adults that there are penalties for harming children. Of course it might, we're back to 'maybe' like answers, I see. Specific examples of situations where this is claimed to have occurred have been raised in this thread. Do you think any of them have merit? What about other claims such as witch-hunts by African Christians in the UK are not being prosecuted out of cultural sensitivity issues? Are there any cases you've heard of, or subsequently looked up, where you think it either has or, despite other's claims you don't think it has - or at least the evidence to support the claims. If you had been paying attention to the thread, you could have used normal English comprehension skills to understand what I was asking. So I reject this possibility without further evidence.

Good point.But I thought the laws against FGM were not being enforced. I thought the complaint was that they are not being enforced because the enforcers are afraid of being labelled as racist.How do you propose to remedy that situation? Saying that they "should" bite the bullet and enforce the law despite their reservations isn't working, is it? What's the next step? Should we imprison police officers who don't enforce the FGM laws?

Yes, that's correct. The result has been quite horrendous with a whole new bunch of allegations just today about police turning a blind eye to abuse in Sheffield.http://www.bbc.com/news/education-29725855 It is working now. It needed the political wind to change and it has now changed. The first FGM prosecutions are now in the system and there are multiple investigations into child abuse in Rotherham and now Sheffield.There have been resignations in several public bodies and there'll be some more.

Well I presuppose uncooperative children because I used to be one. If a doctor had proposed a pelvic exam to me I would have advised him to count his fingers and his ears first because the number was likely to decrease in the process.I presume that a parent would have to be present (in which case maybe even I could be persuaded) but the parents seem unlikely to consent. If authorities were prepared to do that, there wouldn't be much child abuse. And I think there is. Or drive them further underground. Specific situations may suggest that cultural sensitivity can be detrimental to society. That is not an argument for general insensitivity.

I hope that works out well for the children.So now that we're done with FGM, maybe we can get back to the more general "poison" of multiculturalism.

My question was about legalising rape so that rapists don't have to fear seeking medical attention for fear their crime will be detected should they get shot in the process of committing the crime: You said maybe we should in Message 359. You subsequently argued that legalising rape for the health of rapists doesn't make sense and you created an analogy you used to demonstrate this. So you murdered someone, but their friend arrives on the scene and shoots you in the belly and you flee while they try and save their friend's life. Are you saying you do not face the tough choice of going to the hospital and being caught by the police, or trying to find less-official and probably inferior medical help to maximise your chances of avoiding prison. Health or freedom isn't a difficult choice? Almost, and often. But not quite. Maybe is the same as saying 'I am not going commit myself'. This might be because you don't know, or for some other reason. With 'I don't know', you are inviting someone to inform you. When you say 'maybe' you are just being vague.See how you make this more about the meta-debate than about the actual debate. I gave you information, but you neglected to address it. Let me boil it down to a single question to see if that helps: Given there is a need to balance various obligations and concerns when we create laws - what factors do you think are important and, in the context of the topic of this thread, where does 'cultural concerns' outweigh other ones such as public interest, children's rights etc?