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The National University of Singapore said it welcomes a discussion with Yale University after professors at the Ivy League school expressed concern about civil and political rights at a branch campus scheduled to open in the Asian city-state next year.
Three trends on China’s internet in 2011
As I understand Obamacare, which hadn’t yet passed when we recorded this program, the basic answer the U.S. is going to provide about rights is that things stay unchanged. You have a right to get healthcare, in that you don’t have to pay for it up front, but you still have to pay for it, or at least be in debt for what you get.
The big new change is that it's not going to be a right but a duty; everyone has to have health insurance. So it seems to be that we have a right to healthcare without paying cash out of hand, but we have a duty to be able to pay for it, and this means having insurance.
But that is an important change, that affects our rights, namely our right to have health insurance. You can’t have a duty to buy insurance, unless you can buy insurance. And right now, we don’t all have that right. Some people can’t buy insurance at all, and others can’t buy decent insurance at a reasonable price. So if the plan is to make sense, the duty to have insurance will have to be paired with affordable, available insurance for everyone.
So our new right won’t be to healthcare, but to affordable insurance. At least, that’s the outcome some people are hoping for.
Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.
Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.
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Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.
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In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.
Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her foetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.
The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.
Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."
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While New York had already recognized same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, that recognition didn’t extend to state income taxes. Now, couples who marry and live in New York will be able to file their state tax returns jointly. Wealthier couples may end up paying more in taxes, but families with lower incomes may owe less.
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there’s still a long list of federal benefits that will remain out of reach. Since the federal Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as between a man and a woman — is still being enforced, gay couples in New York will still need to file separate federal tax returns. They will not be eligible for Social Security spousal or survivor benefits. And they will continue to owe extra income taxes on their spouse’s health insurance benefits — a cost that opposite-sex married couples don’t have to pay.
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Income Taxes Married couples will be able to file their state tax returns jointly, though they will still need to file separate federal tax returns (either as single or head of household). Some couples who jointly earn less than $65,000 may end up paying less in state income taxes than if they filed individual tax returns because they will get what known as a marriage bonus. But some couples with higher income may be end up in a higher tax bracket by filing jointly. In other words, they would owe less if they remained single and filed separate returns, said Tina Salandra, a New York accountant with expertise in planning for same-sex couples.
Filing joint state returns is also likely to complicate matters for federal tax purposes, and it’s likely to cost the couple more in tax preparation fees (or time, if they fill out their own returns).
Here’s why: Even though the couple must file separate federal tax returns (as single or head of household), they must still prepare a dummy federal tax return using a married filing status, so that they can use that data for filing their joint state return.
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Supporters of Proposition 8 (i.e. opponents of same-sex marriage) argued before Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware on Monday 13 June 2011 that because Judge Walker was himself gay and in a long-term relationship with another man, he ought to have recused himself from the trial. Having failed to do so, his ruling ought to be vacated.
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Judge Ware’s decision was swift. Within 24 hours, he issued his ruling against opponents of same-sex marriage. The editorial in the Sacramento Bee lauded the verdict:
“The sole fact that a federal judge shares the same circumstances or personal characteristics with other members of the general public, and that the judge could be affected by the outcome of a proceeding in the same way that other members of the general public would be affected, is not a basis for either recusal or disqualification,” Ware wrote.
Federal judges can be disqualified from a case if they have a financial interest in the outcome, a close friendship with litigants, or a strong personal bias. Ware forcefully reinforced that a judge’s race, gender, religious affiliation and, yes, sexual orientation isn’t enough by itself.
The Prop. 8 proponents insisted that they weren’t saying that Walker, who was randomly selected to hear the case, should have been disqualified just because he was gay. The issue, they said, was that he was in “the exact same shoes” as the gay and lesbian couples who brought the lawsuit to overturn Prop. 8 and could personally benefit from his own decision.
But by their logic, female judges could be challenged from presiding over sexual harassment, abortion or equal pay cases. As Ware asked, would black judges like himself be barred from civil rights cases? Would reverse discrimination cases be off limits to white male judges? Would heterosexual ones be forbidden from taking on gay rights cases? Where would you draw the line?
– Sacramento Bee, 15 June 2011, Editorial. Link.
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Should a gay male teacher be barred from teaching sexuality education?
If you say he should not teach because professionalism and impartiality is critical to the job, then the next question will obviously be: Why is a gay male teacher not considered professional or incapable of impartiality?
If you say that partiality is the essence of the job, i.e. the purpose of sexuality education is to “promote” heterosexuality and reinforce prejudice against other sexualities, that sexuality education is a form of catechism rather than education (i.e. inculcating knowledge, questioning, self-awareness and responsibility) then the question is: Why is sexuality “education” supposed to be catechism?
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my article, “Are There Natural Human Rights?” prompted nearly 300 responses. Though a few playfully sang the tune of Mollière and Aristophanes concerning the utility of philosophers in the public square, most took the claims made in the article seriously and offered comments, suggestions and critiques. I would like to briefly respond to four groups of comments: (a) questions about God, (b) the role of science, (c) Confucius, and (d) operative rights.
The United Nations counts internet access as a basic human right in a report that bears implications both to on-going events in the Arab Spring and to the Obama administration's war on whistleblowers. Acting as special rapporteur, a human rights watchdog role appointed by the UN Secretary General, Frank La Rue takes a hard line on the importance of the internet as "an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress." Presented to the General Assembly on Friday, La Rue's report comes as the capstone of a year's worth of meetings held between La Rue and local human rights organizations around the world, from Cairo to Bangkok. The report's introduction points to the impact of online collaboration in the Arab Spring and says that "facilitating access to the Internet for all individuals, with as little restriction to online content as possible, should be a priority for all States."
Investing in the health of American women should not be a partisan dispute. Family planning decisions belong to women, their doctors and their families, not to ideologues in Congress. Unfortunately, House Republicans have made attacks on women's health services a top priority of the 112th Congress. Even more startling is that the measures we're considering will not only disproportionately limit low-income and minority women's access to basic health care, it will place unprecedented restrictions on the health insurance benefits offered to middle-class women, civil servants and small business owners.
Upset over the US State Department's annual human rights report, China publishes a report of its own on various US ills. This year, it calls attention to America's border laptop searches, its attitude toward WikiLeaks, and the prevalence of online pornography.
In case the report's purpose wasn't clear, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said this weekend, "We advise the US side to reflect on its own human rights issue, stop acting as a preacher of human rights as well as interfering in other countries' internal affairs by various means including issuing human rights reports."
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The report makes no real attempt to provide context to a huge selection of news articles about bad things happening in the US, piled up one against each other in almost random fashion.
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As the UK's Guardian paper noted, "While some of the data cited in the report is derived from official or authoritative sources, other sections are composed from a mishmash of online material. One figure on crime rates is attributed to '10 Facts About Crime in the United States that Will Blow Your Mind, Beforitsnews.com'." The opening emphasis on US crime is especially odd; crime rates in the US are the lowest they have been in decades; the drop-off has been so dramatic that books have been written in attempts to explain it.
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The Chinese government has attacked the US for targeting WikiLeaks while campaigning for internet freedom overseas.
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Beijing has a doctrine of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, but the State Council Information Office releases an annual report on the US human rights record as a riposte to Washington's criticisms. The document says it underlines the hypocrisy of the US and "its malicious design to pursue hegemony under the pretext of human rights".
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Last week the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, criticised China's "worsening" record – citing the detention of artist Ai Weiwei and others – as she released the annual state department survey of the human rights situation around the world. An introduction to the Chinese document, by the state news agency Xinhua, said the report was "full of distortions" and the US "turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation".
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“It’s weird for me to hear a rights discourse in Singapore, because we have no rights.”
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What might seem mundane in New Haven is nothing less than illegal in Singapore. Not only would protests not be allowed, but those LBQT students who are Singaporean citizens would be blacklisted and prevented from obtaining certain jobs such as teaching in public schools. If an LBQT student group were even allowed to exist in the first place, then those males found to engage in homosexual intercourse or “acts of indecency” would be subject to arrest among other punishments. Good thing Yale has all those clauses in its agreement that allow it to pull out from an unpleasant situation; unfortunately, Singaporeans can’t do the same. On Thursday I was on campus attending a talk by an English professor about gender and discourse who said, “It’s weird for me to hear a rights discourse in Singapore, because we have no rights.”
Reason might not be able to arrive at moral truths, but it can push us to test and question the rationality of our values — a crucial part in the process that leads to the adoption of new, or modified values. The only way to reduce disputes about morality is to try to get people on the same page about their moral goals. Given the above, this will not be easy, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too optimistic in our ability to employ reason to figure things out. But reason is still the best, and even only, tool we can wield, and while it might not provide us with a truly objective morality, it’s enough to save us from complete moral relativism.
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Prinz’s basic stance is that moral values stem from our cognitive hardware, upbringing, and social environment. These equip us with deep-seated moral emotions, but these emotions express themselves in a contingent way due to cultural circumstances. And while reason can help, it has limited influence, and can only reshape our ethics up to a point, it cannot settle major differences between different value systems. Therefore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to construct an objective morality that transcends emotions and circumstance.
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As Prinz writes, in part:“No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value, because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes. … Reason cannot tell us which facts are morally good. Reason is evaluatively neutral. At best, reason can tell us which of our values are inconsistent, and which actions will lead to fulfillment of our goals. But, given an inconsistency, reason cannot tell us which of our conflicting values to drop or which goals to follow. If my goals come into conflict with your goals, reason tells me that I must either thwart your goals, or give up caring about mine; but reason cannot tell me to favor one choice over the other. … Moral judgments are based on emotions, and reasoning normally contributes only by helping us extrapolate from our basic values to novel cases. Reasoning can also lead us to discover that our basic values are culturally inculcated, and that might impel us to search for alternative values, but reason alone cannot tell us which values to adopt, nor can it instill new values.”
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Singapore has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but as a member state of the United Nations is bound to respect “fundamental human rights”. But who decides these rights? Many commentators will argue that they are those enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in which Freedom of Expression is guaranteed by Article 19.
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The United Nations Human Rights Committee has stressed that freedom of expression ensures the free political debate essential to democracy[ii] and has expressed concern that overbearing government controls of the media are incompatible with Freedom of Expression.
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Saatchi & Saatchi placed chopsticks that are actually pencils at Chinese restaurants encouraging people to write to the Chinese government rejecting torture. A nice gesture to raise awareness and drive activism about human rights violations in China with an emphasis on prisoners of conscience, torture and executions.
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Text on the package: Tuck under thumb and hold firmly. Write the Chinese government to help end torture. Take further action at amnesty.org/china. Don’t let human rights violations by the Chinese government give China a bad name.
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THE primacy of this ideal is very recent. In the late 1970s, clearly a full thirty years after World War II, it all came about quite abruptly. And the ascendancy of rights as we now understand them came as a response, in part, to developments in the academy.
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There were versions of utilitarianism, some scornful of rights (with Jeremy Bentham describing them as “nonsense upon stilts”), others that accepted that rights have important social functions (as in John Stuart Mill), but none of them asserted that rights were fundamental in ethical and political thinking.
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Almost never used in English before the 1940s, “human rights” were mentioned in the New York Times five times as often in 1977 as in any prior year of the newspaper’s history. By the nineties, human rights had become central to the thinking not only of liberals but also of neoconservatives, who urged military intervention and regime change in the faith that these freedoms would blossom once tyranny was toppled. From being almost peripheral, the human-rights agenda found itself at the heart of politics and international relations.
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In fact, it has become entrenched in extremis: nowadays, anyone who is skeptical about human rights is angrily challenged
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Bioethics through the lens of Human Rights
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Tenth World Congress on Bioethics
Singapore, 28 July 2010Health care and global justice
The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Australia
Rights of Conscience vs. Civil Rights
Are Health Care Workers Obligated to Treat Gays and Lesbians?
June 3, 2010
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Should doctors, pharmacists and other health care workers have the right to refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious beliefs?
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n March 2009, Julea Ward, a student at Eastern Michigan University (EMU), was dismissed from her graduate-level counseling program when she refused to counsel a gay man about a same-sex relationship.
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