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RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL _______________________________________________________ Editor: Sanal Edamaruku ______________________________________________________ **IN THIS ISSUE**
CHINA: CHALLENGING SUPERSTITION After trying to curb the growing influence of the spiritual Falun Gong movement with police truncheons and banishment, China has now turned to a more efficient weapon: education. “Uphold science and civilization. Oppose superstition and ignorance”, is the title of an exhibition in Beijing's military museum, which is scheduled to tour the whole country. This is the first step of an intense campaign by the government to promote scientific thinking and to tackle superstitious beliefs. “Health and longevity depend on science”, says a display describing methods of modern medicine and surgery and condemning their rejection in favour of spiritual cures. Another display shows the first stages of the development of a human embryo after conception and the chromosomes, which determine the sex of the child. “These are just cells. There is no such thing as reincarnation of a spirit”, says the accompanying text. A major part of the exhibition focuses on optical illusions and explains the tricks of spiritual frauds who claim to have supernatural powers. A recent government survey found that in China traditional superstitions and the belief in witchcraft, ghosts and godmen are increasing. INDIA: OUTSTANDING WORK FOR FAMILY PLANNING Nirmala Paulsamy, a 35 year old village nurse in Tamil Nadu in Southern India, has been nominated by Time Magazine as “Hero of Planet Earth” for her outstanding work for family planning among the rural poor. Nirmala Paulsamy comes from a small poverty stricken village and has grown up with the wish to help people overcome poverty and exploitation. After completing a pre-university course and an 18-month training programme in nursing, she joined the state public health department of Tamil Nadu in 1983 and is now president of the “Village Health Nurses Association”. Her determination to improve Tamil Nadu’s family planning statistics has given an example to her colleguages and convinced countless villagers. The population growth in the state has dropped down to only one per cent in 1999, compared with 1.5 per cent in 1991 and with 1.8 per cent for India as a whole. Nirmala Paulsamy is one of eight “heroes” whose exemplary work for human upliftment and environmental improvements is featured in a special global edition of Time Magazine, which will appear this week on the occasion of “Earth Day” which is 22nd April 2000. NORWAY: EUTHANASIA IS MURDER, SAYS SUPREME COURT It was a key test of Norway’s euthanasia laws and the result was a devastating blow against all those who perceive a dignified death as a human right. After a long court battle which went through a series of appeals up to the High Court and finally to the Supreme Court of Norway, the retired physician Dr. Christian Sandsdahlen (82) has been convicted of first-degree murder last week. In June 1996, Bodil Bjerkmann (45), who suffered with incurable multiple sclerosis, requested Dr. Sandsdahlen to help him end his agony with a lethal dose of morphine. The doctor agreed. After Bjerkmann’s peaceful death, Dr. Sandsdahlen demanded to be tried for murder. Convinced to have human and ethical considerations on his side, he wanted to put the laws to a test and open a judicial debate about euthanasia. Sandsdahlen is the first ever doctor tried in Norway for mercy killing. The taboo of euthanasia, beneath draconian abortion laws, traditionally a strongly defended bastion of the Christian churches, is slowly melting down in many European countries. Assisted suicide is on the way to legalisation or at least tolerated in the name of human considerations. Against the tide of this general tendency to humanisation of the laws, the case of Dr. Sandsdahlen shows the rigidity of the Norwegian laws. Norway is one of the few countries in Europe left with a state church and a king, who by law, is required to be a member of this church. CALL FOR BIRTH CONTROL IN UN YOUTH SUMMIT Pop star and former "Spice Girl" Geri Halliwell was greeted with noisy protest when she addressed a United Nations sponsored youth summit in London last Saturday. Halliwell, UN Goodwill Ambassador since 1998, is a strong campaigner for birth control. When she visited the Philippines last year and insisted on the need to bring down the raising birth rates, she invoked the ire of the Roman Catholic Church. In London, unimpressed by the protesters, she delivered a hitting speech calling emphatically for the use of contraceptives and describing the outcome of further unchecked reproduction. "Every year", she told her young audience, “600,000 women die around the world as a result of pregnancy. That is the same as 22 double-decker buses full of pregnant women crashing every day without survivors”. The youngsters from 52 countries had been invited by the UN to represent the world’s next generation in the first ever Model UN Millennium Summit. BRTAIN MAY END BAN ON HUMAN CLONING An expert commission led by Britain’s chief medical officer Dr. Liam Donaldson is going to recommend the British Government to lift the ban on “therapeutic cloning” of human embryos. The commission’s extensive report, expected to be published in May, concluded that the potential benefits of this step would be enormous and would outweigh ethical problems. Scientists are very optimistic that in near future a wide range of diseases can be treated by creating embryo clones of the patient to win cells with his exact genetical code and use them to grow spare parts for the body to replace damaged organs. Bone marrow for leukemia patients, a new heart muscle or tissue to substitute a damaged liver part could be produced with this technique. The British Government is expected to approve the recommendations of the expert commission to lift the ban, which include strict rules, specifying the circumstances under which human embryos can be cloned, to avoid misuse. Though the growing of bone marrow and heart muscles does not pose any threat to humanity but saves human life, the Roman Catholic Church has already condemned the developments and "pro-life" campaigners are raising their war cries. But scientists and government are unlikely to submit to the church sponsored protest and prepare for a heated debate. Rationalist International Bulletin # 37 may be reproduced, forwarded or quoted from, by recipients, if they wish. Please acknowledge the source while reproducing: "Rationalist International Bulletin #37". Rationalist International Bulletin is the online organ of the RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL (formerly International Alliance Against Fundamentalism), founded during the 1st International Rationalist Conference held in 1995. The Second International Conference has been held at Kerala, India from 17 to 21 January 2000. Cordially, Sanal Edamaruku <edamaruku@yahoo.com> RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL |