Questions surrounding personal identity were a recurring theme at a conference organised by the Family Education Trust in central London in June.
Several speakers referred to the gender identity agenda which has come very much to the fore in recent months and is advancing rapidly as growing numbers of people are insisting on their ‘right’ to be treated and regarded as something other than their biological sex.
Truth at variance with evidence?
Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, remarked, ‘One of the most disturbing things about gender ideology is the effect that it has on our perception of reality. Do we really want to train the minds of our children to believe things to be true which are at variance with the evidence that is staring them in the face?’
He also observed that another major problem with the gender identity agenda lies in the fact that it is unkind, cruel and lacking in compassion. He commented: ‘Imagine that I – a white, middle-aged man – were to tell you that I am a young black African woman. If you were to treat me as a young black African woman, you wouldn’t be helping me at all. You would merely be reinforcing me in my confusion and delusion.
‘To be truly kind and compassionate towards me, you would need to honestly, gently and patiently seek to help me to recognise and accept who I really am, and not try to pretend that I am something that I am not.’
Identity and development
Later in the day, Dr Calum MacKellar, Director of Research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, considered the question of identity in the context of developments in reproductive technology.
He pointed out that personal identity is of fundamental importance and cannot be divorced from our parentage and the origins of our existence. In an ideal world, Dr MacKellar said, a child is brought into existence by a couple completely giving of themselves and of their gametes (egg and sperm) to each other. The parents then go on to completely give of themselves to the child they have produced. But in the non-ideal world that we now inhabit it is not always quite so straightforward.
A host of ethical issues
As a result of sperm banks, egg banks, the advent of ‘three parent children’ and the prospect of developing a way of creating sperm from the stem cells of a woman or creating eggs from the stem cells of a man, a whole host of ethical issues have arisen.
Dr MacKellar observed that children can now be brought into existence with origins shrouded in mystery and an identity that is difficult to understand. He noted that both the scientific community and the political establishment in the UK were inclined to the view that if a new technology is possible and useful, then it is automatically ethical. In their zeal to be at the forefront of technological advances, there was a resistance to thinking through the medical, ethical, psychological and social implications and consequences.
Dr MacKellar’s clear-headed and surefooted guide through the ethical minefield merits careful consideration.
‘SMAF’ undermining the family
Concluding the conference, journalist and author James Bartholomew demonstrated how the state, the media, academia and feminists (‘SMAF’) had united to undermine the family. By investing heavily in childcare and in care for the elderly, Western governments had created an expectation that both children and the elderly would be cared for outside the family. As a result, the state was undermining the role of the family at both ends of the age spectrum.
Mr Bartholomew argued that as the family has been undermined so the state has grown in power and in the conviction that it has both a right and a duty to interfere more in family life. He urged everyone present to fight back against ‘SMAF’ and to take back family responsibilities – for the sake of children yet to be born, for the sake of the elderly, and in order to establish a more stable and civil society.
