World Congress for Freedom of Scientific Research newsletter -6
Dear .....................,
Starting from this month, the Bulletin of the World Congress will include a report on the state of freedom of research in one country. This month is about the situation in Poland. The monitoring is realized both through direct research and already existing studies. If you wish to contribute about the situation in your country and in your field or you would like to suggest other sources, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best regards,
MARCO CAPPATO
World Congress for freedom of scientific research
If you have trouble reading this, please click http://old.radicalparty.org/pub/freedom06.html
World Congress for Freedom of Scientific Research
the bulletin
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Number 6, November 2009
- "Taking the "human" out of human rights and the "dignity" out of human dignity and putting the science back" by John Harris, Bioethics, University of Manchester, United Kingdom: “Human dignity is a vacuous and discredited concept. It is also inherently speciesist. It is therefore time to take the “human” out of human rights and the “dignity” out of human dignity. First of all, because it is very probable that in the future there will be no more human beings. We, humans are already humanimals. We know we are descended from apes, but we perhaps need to remind ourselves that this descent is seamless and means that our genetic constitution contains a mixture of the genes of all the creatures, all the other species, that are part of the origin of our transient and transitional species”. Read the full text on line (from the proceedings of the Second Meeting of the World Congress for Freed! om of Scientific Research).
- Women central to efforts to deal with climate change, says new UNFPA report. The State of World Population 2009, released last November 18 by UNFPA, argues that the international community’s fight against climate change is more likely to be successful if policies, programmes and treaties take into account the needs, rights and potential of women. The report shows that investments that empower women and girls—particularly education and health—bolster economic development and reduce poverty and have a beneficial impact on climate. Women with access to reproductive health services, including family planning, have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse-gas emissions in the long run. Read more.
- Contraception is vital in climate change fight, experts say. Global Humanitarian Forum on the Human Impact of Climate Change in Geneva accepted Optimum Population Trust’s position. According to the forum held last October, population growth is a major environmental problem, making equitable mitigation and adaptation policies harder to solve. Near to this idea, a study by Leo Bryant (WHO) argues that overpopulation (more than 9 billion people by 2050) combined with climate change would worsen living conditions by degrading natural resources. In this way, Bryant says, health policies targeting family planning must be combined projects to educate people about sustainable farming and land management.
- UNICEF in Sudan urges religious leaders to pray for children. The solution proposed by UNESCO to decades of war and child mortality in Sudan is a further involvement of religious communities and prayer. Read more.
- Freedom of research and cure in the world. Starting from this issue a country report will be published every month together with a synoptic table on the state of: assisted reproduction technologies (ART); research with human embryonic stem cells (hESC); end-of-life decisions; abortion and contraception; therapeutic uses of narcotic drugs; pain treatments. The goal is to research and measure in various countries around the world the degree of freedom that relevant actors enjoy in engaging in a number of activities having to do with biomedical research and health care. The country of the month is Poland, inquired with the help of the Library of the European Parliament - DG Presidency in December 2008. The report is still incomplete in some fields, open to contribution of readers and contact points. You can help monitoring f! reedom of research and cure in your country and in the world. Read more.
News in brief:
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