Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is one of many cities around the world offering some form of vaccine tourism. Eugene Kaspersky. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
While wealthy countries with an excess of vaccines promote tourism to receive the shots, this provokes ethical concerns as there are 67 countries who have yet to report a single inoculation.
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The New Zealand Parliament building. Ref54. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
In a late October referendum, New Zealanders voted in favor of legalizing euthanasia, the practice of allowing patients with an incurable and painful illness to terminate their life early. This binding act, which will go into effect on Nov. 6, 2021, will make New Zealand one of seven countries to permit the controversial practice. Assisted suicide, a similar practice which involves a physician aiding in ending a terminal patient’s life, is legal in a handful of jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Germany and several U.S. states.
The practice of euthanasia, while gaining support around the globe, is still considered controversial, especially among religious communities. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, has condemned the practice, stating in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that: “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.” This opposition has resulted in a patchwork system of legal euthansia, assisted suicide or other means of voluntarily terminating one’s life.
A view of Auckland, New Zealand’s most populous city. Pedro Szekely. CC BY-SA 2.0.
New Zealand’s referendum centered around whether or not the country should adopt the 2019 End of Life Choice Act. The law, which was originally introduced in October 2015 by member of Parliament David Seymour, permits voluntary euthanasia for patients confirmed by two doctors to have a terminal illness and be in the final six months of their lives.
“The motivation for this bill is compassion,” Seymour said in a press release from political party ACT New Zealand. “It allows people who so choose and are eligible under this bill to end their life in peace and dignity, surrounded by loved ones.”
While public opinion in New Zealand over the last two decades has averaged around 68% annually in support of legalized euthanasia, opponents to the practice have succeeded in shooting down similar legislation. Two iterations of the Death with Dignity Bill and a previous iteration of the End of Life Choice Bill, which outlined similar euthansia legalization statuses to the one voted on last month, failed to make it through Parliament in 1995, 2003 and 2012, respectively.
The main opposition force to euthanasia in New Zealand has been The Care Alliance, an organization which was created shortly after the introduction of the 2012 End of Life Choice Bill. It advocates for “better end-of-life care and assisted living services for people at the end of life or who require assistance to live” with the belief that “a compassionate and ethical response to suffering does not include euthanasia or assisted suicide.”
The current End of Life Choice Act is set to go into effect on Nov. 6, 2021, which allows for a one-year implementation period to take place immediately after the results of the referendum were finalized on Nov. 6, 2020.
A crowd listens as Pope Francis delivers Sunday Angelus. Greg Sass. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
As of November 2020, euthanasia in any form is explicitly banned in countries on every continent. While each country has its own reasons for banning the practice, one standard which has inhibited further global legalization has been the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." This has been interpreted by many in opposition to euthanasia as a standard to abide by.
Many within the religious community have opposed euthanasia for years. Many denominations of Christianity, including Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the aforementioned Catholicism, have all condemned the practice as a form of murder.
While Islam does not explicitly prohibit euthanasia, the practice is considered to be in direct opposition to Islamic law. Several passages from the Quran have been interpreted in such a manner, including “And do not take any human being’s life—which Allah has made sacred save with right” and “Do not kill yourselves: for verily Allah is to you most merciful.” This has resulted in euthanasia being a crime in nearly all majority-Muslim countries.
Other world religions, such as Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, are still debating the ethics of euthanasia. Generally, these debates center around a conflict between a divine right to life and the increasing trend toward global secularism.
The flag of the World Health Organization. United States Mission Geneva. CC BY-ND 2.0.
Euthanasia in any form and assisted suicide are legal in at least one country on every continent except Africa. Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the Australian state of Western Australia are the most permissive places for euthanasia, allowing for the active form of the practice, which involves an incurably ill patient receiving terminal care.
Passive euthanasia, the practice of refusing medical treatment and receiving appropriate pain management, is more broadly legal, primarily in the Western world but also in India, South Korea, Argentina and Chile.
The Australian state of Victoria and the countries of Germany and Switzerland permit assisted suicide. This practice differs from both active and passive euthanasia in that a physician is not the one terminating a patient’s life, but rather aids a patient as they terminate their own life. In the United States, assisted suicide is legal in the District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. Additionally, the legal status of assisted suicide in Montana is disputed due to an unclear court ruling in 2009.
With the ongoing pandemic and renewed discussions on the ethics of ending one’s life, euthanasia remains a hotly debated issue which likely will not go away any time soon.
Jacob Sutherland
is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.
“Projects intended to show the joys of traveling and femininity” Joanna Jurczak. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
As the sustainable travel movement takes hold throughout the tourism industry, a new initiative has grown: one which promotes social sustainability by empowering women who run travel organizations, as well as the women who live and work in the communities visited.
In recent years, a new movement has grown within the tourism industry: socially-responsible travel. A primary facet of the ethical travel movement has been eco-tourism: international travel focused on reducing environmental impact as much as possible. When thinking about the ethics of travel, tourism is especially tricky. Although not completely straightforward, environmental footprint can be measured quantitatively by studying emissions, soil erosion, and fluctuations within ecosystems. Similarly, travel undertaken without cultural awareness risks trampling, commercializing, and exploiting the cultures and peoples indigenous to the places visited. Negative socio-cultural effects of travel are frequently masked--or if not masked, are presumed to be mitigated--by the economic benefits of tourism. Because of this, and unlike environmental effects, the drawbacks of socially-irresponsible travel are difficult to categorize, and spiral throughout society as a whole.
Fortunately, the ill-effects on the social structure of communities created by tourism can be minimized through a respect for and a foreknowledge of the history, language, and culture of the peoples and places visited. More than just minimizing social impact, there exist multiple organizations and projects dedicated to mindful traveling that promotes female empowerment and forging sustainable global relationships. The work of these organizations allows for enriching travel experiences while cultivating the socio-economic flourishment of local cultures. Growing alongside eco-tourism, but often less discussed, are movements empowering women through the travel industry; these include women-owned travel firms with primarily female staff, as well as organizations that seek to connect with and offer support to women in the communities they visit.
One such organization is Planeterra, a foundation that assists in designing, planning, and executing projects focused on sustainability and global development by harnessing the resources available in local communities in combination with those generated through the travel industry. A major facet of Planeterra’s work is in female social and economic empowerment, which includes employing women as tour guides, and contributing funding to and bringing in markets for handicrafts and services provided by entrepreneurs who are women all over the world. Similarly, the Intrepid Foundation has spearheaded the Empowerment Collective, a series of localized community projects based around the world. Empowerment Collective projects concentrate on areas such as women’s education and literacy, vocational training, and supporting entrepreneurial endeavors undertaken by women inside and outside of the travel industry.
Consequently, ethical travel spearheaded by women, for women fosters sustainability in ways that differ from environmentally-sustainable travel. Rather than seeking to reduce impact alone, female empowerment projects promote sustainability in a productive sense: forming relationships and growing networks of economic support that heightens the personal and financial power of women globally. The act of traveling connects women and builds self-esteem, while providing avenues for women who are entrepreneurs in the travel industry to empower themselves and one another by achieving economic independence and forming cross-cultural partnerships. Although the ability to travel itself is, for the most part, linked inextricably to socio-economic privileges, it is misguided to say that those hierarchies must be replicated in the places visited. That is to say, intentional channeling of the resources of the tourism industry brings heightened personal independence and opportunity to both the women who run these projects and the women who live and work in the places visited, creating avenues for greater socio-economic parity all over the world.
Hallie Griffiths
is an undergraduate at the University of Virginia studying Foreign Affairs and Spanish. After graduation, she hopes to apply her passion for travel and social action toward a career in intelligence and policy analysis. Outside of the classroom, she can be found, quite literally, outside: backpacking, rock climbing, or skiing with her friends.
How can photographers be more sensitive towards their subjects? Feed My Starving Children (FMSC), CC BY
In a series of provocative photographs, poor children in India were made to pose in front of fancy tables covered with fake food. A prize-winning Italian photographer, Alessio Mamo, took these pictures in 2011, as part of a project called “Dreaming Food.” After the World Press Photo Foundation shared the photos on Instagram, they sparked a bitter controversy. Many considered them unethical and offensive.
In his apology, Mamo described his desire to show to a Western audience “in a provocative way, about the waste of food.” He was attacked for lacking cultural sensitivity and violating 21st-century photographic ethics.
Despite such risks, as a public law scholar, I am aware that images of suffering are often part of human rights campaigns. And freedom of expression, including visual representation, is protected by a United Nations treaty and many national constitutions.
At the same time, however, I argue for ethical limitations on the right to take pictures.
The controversy around Mamo’s so-called “poverty porn” images is not the first time that such questions have been raised.
The iconic photograph ‘Migrant Mother’ by Dorothea Lange, on display at the Oakland Museum of California. AP Photo/Eric Risberg
One such case was that of the 1936 black-and-white photograph of Florence Owens Thompson that became the iconic image of the “Migrant Mother” during the Depression. Photographer Dorothea Lange took the picture for Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency tasked with helping poor families relocate. It showed Thompson, with her children, living in poverty.
The family survived on frozen vegetables and birds they hunted. The photo was intended to build support for social welfare policies.
The photo raised some moral questions.
While Lange shot to fame, no one knew the name of the woman. It was only decades later that Thompson was tracked down and agreed to tell her story. As it turned out, Thompson didn’t profit from “Migrant Mother” and continued to work hard to keep her family together. As she said later,
“I didn’t get anything out of it. I wish she hadn’t taken my picture. … She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.”
Thompson felt “bitter, angry and alienated,” over the “commodification” of her image, wrote scholars Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, in their study of powerful images.
Thompson was the poster child for the Depression, and she did take some pride in that. Her photo benefited many. But, as she asked a reporter, “what good’s it doing me?”
Another striking example is a 1993 photo by South African photographer Kevin Carter showing a young Sudanese girl, with a vulture perched near her. The iconic image captured public attention by focusing on the plight of children during a time of famine.
Kevin Carter’s photo shows a starving girl with a vulture next to her. Cliff
Unlike other images depicting starving children with “flies in the eyes,” this one highlighted the predicament of a vulnerable famine victim, crawling to a food station in Ayod, in South Sudan.
The picture won Carter a Pulitzer Prize in 1994, but also precipitated an avalanche of criticism. Although Carter scared the vulture away, he did not carry the girl to the nearby food station. The fate of the girl remained unknown.
In a critical essay about the image, scholars Arthur and Ruth Kleinman asked: Why did the photographer allow the predatory bird to move so close to the child? Why were her relatives no where to be seen? And, what did the photographer do after he took the picture?
They also went on to write that the Pulitzer Prize was won “because of the misery (and probable death) of a nameless little girl.” Some others called Carter “as much a predator as the vulture.”
Two months after receiving the Pulitzer, in July 1994, Carter took his own life. Apart from his own challenging personal circumstances, his suicide note revealed that he was haunted by the vivid memories of the suffering that he witnessed.
Admittedly, famine, poverty and disasters need attention and action. The challenge for journalists, as scholar David Campbell notes, is to mobilize public reactions before it is too late.
These catastrophes require prompt intervention by government and relief agencies, through, what human rights scholar Thomas Keenan and others call, “mobilizing shame” – a way of exerting pressure on states to act to rescue those in dire circumstances.
Such an effort is often more effective if images are used. As Rakiya Omaar and Alex de Waal, co-directors of African Rights, a new human rights organization based in London, note,
“The most respectable excuse for selectively presenting images of starvation is that this is necessary to elicit our charity.”
The truth is, these images do have an impact. When James Nachtwey, an American photographer, took photos of the famine in Somalia, the world was moved. The Red Cross said public support resulted in what was then its largest operation since WWII. It was much the same with Carter’s image, which helped galvanize aid to Sudan.
Nonetheless, as Campbell contends, media coverage can reinforce negative stereotypes through an iconography of famine or images of those starving in “remote” places like Africa. His argument is that individuals continue to present people in what the Kleinmans call the “ideologically Western mode.”
In this framing, the individual appears without context, usually alone, and without the ability to act independently.
Greater awareness of the power of images in different contexts has exerted pressure on NGOs and journalists to shift from a “politics of pity” to a “politics of dignity.”
In 2010 Amnesty International issued photo guidelines, regarding rules for images that show suffering. Save the Children also drafted a manual after conducting research on image ethics in various parts of the world.
Explicit rules include not posing subjects, avoiding nudity and consulting subjects about the way they believe the narrative ought to be presented visually. A major concern has been how sometimes the subjects and scene might be manipulated to orchestrate an image.
What this reflects is a desire to show greater sensitivity to the precarious status of some subjects in photographs.
But this is easier said than done. Recognizing that voyeuristic interpretation of distant suffering is offensive does not necessarily mean this practice will cease. The real challenge ultimately is that the ethically problematic images that present “pitiful” victims to the world are often the ones that capture public attention.
Eventually, much rests on the stringent ethical standards that photographers set for themselves. What they do need to remember, is that often, good intentions do not justify the use of questionable images of suffering.
ALISON DUNDES RENTEIN is a Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, Public Policy and Law at the University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION
Years ago the Kayan people fled Burma and headed to Thailand due to civil war, they lived in refugee camps until the government settled them in Northern Thailand.
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