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All of this is not to deny that departing from the traditional
sanctity-of-life ethic carries with it a very small but nevertheless
finite risk of unwanted consequences. Against this risk we must
balance the tangible harm to which the traditional ethic gives
rise - harm to those whose misery is needlessly prolonged. We
must also ask if the widespread acceptance of abortion and
passive euthanasia has not already revealed flaws in the traditional
ethic that make it a weak defence against those who
lack respect for individual lives. A sounder, if less clear-cut,
ethic may in the long run provide a firmer ground for resisting
unjustifiable killing.
217
8
RICH AND POOR
SOME FACTS ABOUT POVERTY
I N the discussion of euthanasia in Chapter 7, we questioned
the distinction between killing and allowing to die, concluding
that it is of no intrinsic ethical significance. This conclusion
has implications that go far beyond euthanasia.
Consider these facts: by the most cautious estimates, 400
million people lack the calories, protein, vitamins and minerals
needed to sustain their bodies and minds in a healthy state.
Millions are constantly hungry; others suffer from deficiency
diseases and from infections they would be able to resist on a
better diet. Children are the worst affected. According to one
study, 14 million children under five die every year from the
combined effects of malnutrition and infection. In some districts
half the children born can be expected to die before their fifth
birthday.
Nor is lack of food the only hardship of the poor. To give a
broader picture, Robert McNamara, when president of the
World Bank, suggested the term 'absolute poverty'. The poverty
we are familiar with in industrialised nations is relative poverty
- meaning that some citizens are poor, relative to the wealth
enjoyed by their neighbours. People living in relative poverty
in Australia might be quite comfortably off by comparison with
pensioners in Britain, and British pensioners are not poor in
comparison with the poverty that exists in Mali or Ethiopia.
Absolute poverty, on the other hand, is poverty by any standard.
In McNamara's words:
218
I
I ,
Rich and Poor
Poverty at the absolute level ... is life at the very margin of existence.
The absolute poor are severely deprived human beings
struggling to survive in a set of squalid and degraded circumstances
almost beyond the power of our sophisticated imaginations
and privileged circumstances to conceive.
Compared to those fortunate enough to live in developed countries,
individuals in the poorest nations have:
An infant mortality rate eight times higher
A life expectancy one-third lower
An adult literacy rate 60 per cent less
A nutritional level, for one out of every two in the population,
below acceptable standards;
And for millions of infants, less protein than is sufficient to permit
optimum development of the brain.
McNamara has summed up absolute poverty as 'a condition of
life so characterised by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid
surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as
to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency'.
Absolute poverty is, as McNamara has said, responsible for
the loss of countless lives, especially among infants and young
children. When absolute poverty does not cause death, it still
causes misery of a kind not often seen in the affluent nations.
Malnutrition in young children stunts both physical and mental
development. According to the United Nations Development
Programme, 180 million children under the age of five suffer
from serious malnutrition. Millions of people on poor diets suffer
from deficiency diseases, like goitre, or blindness caused by
a lack of vitamin A. The food value of what the poor eat is
further reduced by parasites such as hookworm and ringworm,
which are endemic in conditions of poor sanitation and health
education.
Death and disease apart, absolute poverty remains a miserable
condition of life, with inadequate food, shelter, clothing, sanitation,
health services and education. The Worldwatch Institute
219
Practical Ethics
estimates that as many as 1.2 billion people - or 23 per cent of
the world's population - live in absolute poverty. For the purposes
of this estimate, absolute poverty is defined as "the lack
of sufficient income in cash or kind to meet the most basic
biological needs for food, clothing, and shelter." Absolute poverty
is probably the principal cause of human misery today.
SOME FACTS ABOUT WEALTH
This is the background situation, the situation that prevails
on our planet all the time. It does not make headlines. People
died from malnutrition and related diseases yesterday, and
more will die tomorrow. The occasional droughts, cyclones,
earthquakes, and floods that take the lives of tens of thousands
in one place and at one time are more newsworthy. They add
greatly to the total amount of human suffering; but it is wrong
to assume that when there are no major calamities reported,
all is well.
The problem is not that the world cannot produce enough to
feed and shelter its people. People in the poor countries consume,
on average, 180 kilos of grain a year, while North Americans
average around 900 kilos. The difference is caused by the