![[Critical Mass]](/archives/cmlogo.gif)
![[dot]](/archives/cmdot.gif){kind=small}
April 18, 2008
![[feather]](/archives/feather.gif){kind=small}
More on Shvarts
Let's look at two quotes.
The first is Yale's statement on Shvarts' abortive senior art project:
Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.
Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.
That's from Helaine Klasky, Yale's spokesperson.
The second quote is from Shvarts' comments on the commentary she has provoked, published this morning in the Yale Daily News:
For me, the most poignant aspect of this representation--the part most meaningful in terms of its political agenda (and, incidentally, the aspect that has not been discussed thus far)--is the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood. Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether the there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading.
Of course, it's possible that Shvarts is continuing to yank everybody's chain and that when Yale calls the entire enterprise a "creative fiction," it means to say that Shvarts never really did any of the things she described doing. Or, it's possible that Shvarts absolutely did those things--but just never took a pregnancy test to determine whether she had conceived, and to know whether, indeed, she was aborting anything when she took her abortifacients.
Certainly both her op-ed and Yale's statement, which is quite hedgily worded, and which does not say she never inseminated herself, only that she never impregnated herself, supports the second reading. And if this is the case, then Yale is now complicit with a gruesomely unethical undertaking, in ways that raise major ethical and legal questions for the university.
Consider, if the latter scenario is true: the failure of academic oversight, and the massive liability, involved when advisors and apparently deans signed off on Shvarts' project, which could have landed her in a hospital or worse, and which involved a horribly negligent attitude toward human life. Consider the massive ethical and legal issues currently surrounding fertility clinics' disposal of unused embryos and even unfertilized eggs.
Consider, too, that Shvarts is at once wrong and right when she speaks of "the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood" and concludes that "the reality of pregnancy ... is a matter of reading." She is wrong when she suggests that the status of the blood she collected is unknowable because she personally does not know it; right when she says it is a matter of reading. There are tests that can be done on that blood, and there are plenty of scientific and medical professionals employed by Yale who could "read" the results.
Yale will be honoring Shvarts at a reception on April 25.
Trackback Pings:
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.erinoconnor.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1448
Comments:
A commenter at Neptunus Lex reminds us of a quote from John Adams:
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain"
...which is kind of depressing in this context.
Although this post seems to assume that Shvarts' project is fraught with ethical problems, I really don't see any.
Of course, whether you think this project has such problems depends on your views on other issues - such as abortion or the value of human life. I think its worth spelling out how different assumptions lead to different conclusions:
Shvarts' project, which could have landed her in a hospital or worse...
This may be a legal problem, but I doubt its a moral one. If Shvarts wants to risk harm to herself for what she believes is a higher cause, its strictly her own business.
...involved a horribly negligent attitude toward human life. . Consider the massive ethical and legal issues currently surrounding fertility clinics' disposal of unused embryos and even unfertilized eggs.
I don't believe that possession of human dna is a "magic" property which automatically confers moral status on its bearer. I find it much more plausible that it is the intelligence and consciousness of humans which gives them them their moral status. As far as embryos go, create them, destroy them, display them, whatever - I fail to see why any of these acts have moral consequences.
I would love it if Shvarts critics, after accusing her of being "horribly negligent towards human life," would try to explain why its bad to be negligent towards human life - where "human life" is defined broadly enough to encompass embryos.
Alex,
One does not have to be anti-abortion to have ethical issues with what Shvarts did. I am pro-choice, and I have problems with it. That said, my ultimate point is that this is not for you or for me to decide. Yale's IRB should have reviewed it--and it absolutely has an ethical duty, as well as a legal one. If Shvarts really did inseminate herself and then induce menstruation and possible abortion for the purposes of a school project, she should have gotten approval from the IRB. If she did not, there are big ethical, procedural, and legal problems for Yale right there. If she did, Yale still has those problems, as approving such a project (assuming there is anything more to it than lies) would have left Yale immensely vulnerable on many levels. The mere fact that she plans to display her own blood in a public venue should have been reviewed for obvious public health reasons.
re: fertility clinics and embryos
unused embryos typically belong to the couples that made them. in best conditions they have a fifty percent chance of developing into a baby. there are massive ethical issues--any good clinic will inform the couple of these ethical issues. i fear the day the government says my embryos must go to another couple.
as for Shvarts--i have to agree with david.
Alex, I think the deeper error in your statement is here
Shvarts wants to risk harm to herself for what she believes is a higher cause, its strictly her own business.Schvarts did not do this by herself, she did it with the permission of Yale and with Yale's imprimatur, while Yale had (at least some) in loco parentis responsibility.
What if a student, for a class art project, wanted to build and fly and ultralight aircraft of unsound and unsafe design?...and wrapped the whole project in "postmodern" gibberish? And what if he flew it, predictably crashed, and broke his leg...then repaired it, flew it again, and broke his arm?
Is there any university that would go along with this scenario? I suspect the answer would be a function of the "quality" of the postmodern gibberish.
Post a comment:
