Author: Danielle Levy

A 49-year old Australian quadriplegic who was on a ventilator and a feeding tube recently died shortly after winning his legal fight to refuse treatment and food. He said he was in constant pain, his life had become a living hell and he wanted the right to refuse food meaning not have the feeding tube planted in his stomach. The court finally agreed. Pro euthanasia groups cheered, but Right to Life ones said the patient should have been given psychiatric care instead. Wouldn’t that assume that wanting to be released from pain is a symptom of mental illness? To many, not wanting to endure more pain than necessary is rational. Holding on to life at any cost may reveal more about our ignorance about what life really is than our understanding. And then there’s the issue of imposing one’s belief on another, far from a spiritual act—all the more puzzling when spiritual values are the premise upon which the objections are made.

The Will to Intervene Project at the Montreal Institute and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University has issued a report which asks the world to find a way to intervene before genocides like the ones in Rwanda and Darfur occur. The report suggests that when one considers the dangers and risks, whether from pandemics, from pirates in Somalia, or from the requirements of genocide after they occur, that averting those crises is far less risky. The report also proposes to rethink the notion of not intervening on the basis of national sovereignty, suggesting the concept, no longer efficient, may be becoming outdated.
Whether we like to admit it or not, genocides will occur. We can usually anticipate where. If the report holds any truth, to avert them is not only preferable politically, economically and socially, it is also a way to prevent a lot of suffering—something that ought to give averting genocide priority status.

Bernard Kouchner, the French minister for Foreign and European affairs, has proposed to tax certain financial transactions to raise money to better help African countries. It’s a modest sum, something like 5 euros for a 1000 euros transaction, or 0.005%, but according to him it could generate $44 billion and would go a long way to fill the need and make up for the problems ran into by the Millennium Developments Goals which were meant to half poverty by 2015. When we read that World Food Aid is at a 20 year low, and the recession has hit the less fortunate the hardest and that there are one billion hungry people in the world, Mr. Kouchner’s idea gives hope and is worth thinking about if not implementing. The chairman of Unitaid, Philippe Douste-Blazy, for one endorsed the idea in a NYT editorial. No one likes taxes but when they are meant as a way to share, we ought to open our hearts and acquiesce.

Sometimes the foreign press is a better source of information for certain type of news about the US. Reading Germany’s Der Spiegel I learned that the US senate had passed a bill—not yet the whole Congress, please note—mandating a $10 entry fee for each person coming to the US from a country where a visa is not required, countries like Germany, France, the UK. Germany’s interior minister called the fee “not logical” and a high-ranking member of the German government is asking Washington to abandon any such plan. The money thus raised is meant to be used to pay for an advertising campaign to promote tourism. Wouldn’t an open door policy be a better message to visit the US? Why place obstacles in the way of a free flow of people? At a time when the US’ image still needs tweaking, why make the task that much harder? Is the loss of goodwill worth the projected monetary gain?