Judging Values

European Ethical debates are shifting from the Rights of Embryos to the Rights of Women.

Tank where frozen embryos are stored.

Recently The European Court of Human Rights judged in the case between an English woman and UK concerning her right to be implanted with fertilised eggs, formerly placed in a freezer by herself and her former, now divorced husband. The verdict reflected that no "clear common ground" concerning these ethical issues exists.

Ms. Evans was operated for ovarian cancer back in 2001, but before the operation she had some eggs fertilised and put on freeze. Later she was divorced and her former husband chose not to give his consent to her being impregnated with the embryos. The case went to court in England. Later the verdict - which denied her the right - was appealed to The European Court of Human Rights. In April the verdict was given based on the following statement: "In conclusion, therefore, since the use of IVF treatment gives rise to sensitive moral and ethical issues against a background of fast-moving medical and scientific developments, and since the questions raised by the case touch on areas where there is no clear common ground amongst the Member States, the Court considers that the margin of appreciation to be afforded to the respondent State must be a wide one". The court thus based its' verdict on the lack of a common moral and ethical position concerning these issues.

Judging Values in Europe
The verdict raises without doubt a number of tricky questions in terms of the future development of our European Community. Some of these are on the agenda in Germany at the International Congress on Justice and Human Values in Europe where the program is well worth studying in detail. The key question for the conference is the old and rather tired dilemma: To what extents do the European nations share a common value-system on which verdicts may be based? Although human rights and the common respect for inviolable human beings are shared by all, there are a number of tricky issues demanding continuous ethical and moral reflection - the rights to abortion versus the rights for the unborn child, stem-cell research based on human embryos, the right to assisted death-help etc. All these questions are on the agenda at the congress in Karlsruhe, Germany as they have been many times before, reflecting the fact that our common law is as much prejudicial as Roman.

Much more important (and tricky) seem however to be an additional number of new questions directly reflecting the Islamic wish for sharia law to be accorded the same rights as the common law. If different European nations with reference to different churches or traditions accord different rights to e.g. unborn children and we accept different verdicts based on these differences, the case is wide-open for an equal acceptance of laws pertaining to the rights for e.g. Muslim women. In a wider context this discussion opens up for the establishing of parallel systems of laws pertaining to parallel societies inside a nation.

Visigoths and Romans
This is nothing new. In the time following upon the decline and fall of the Roman Empire - 400 - 500 AD - a number of so called barbarian laws were collected and published. Some like the Visigothic laws stipulated different prices for assaulting Romans or Goths. The latter cost twice as much!

Last year the Telegraph conducted a poll among Muslims in UK, which showed that 40 % of the Muslims in UK wanted sharia laws introduced. One year after Policy Exchange, an independent think-tank, has shown that younger Muslims primarily share this opinion. Whether or not the details of these polls are accurate, the issue is on the agenda. And it will be discussed in Karlsruhe.

It seems as if the pertinent ethical questions in the first decade of the 21st century has to do with women's rights, the use of religious symbols, e.g., the headscarf worn by Muslim women, "honor killings" and the protection of religious symbols and feelings, e.g., religious caricatures.

Related Information
International Congress on Justice and Human Values in Europe - A conference to accompany the German EU Council Presidency, Karlsruhe, 9 - 11 May 2007