While she doesn’t actively cultivate a career of controversy, Dr. Margaret Somerville’s track record with the media belies the truth: during a particularly prolific four-month span, the ethicist, Samuel Gale Professor of Law, professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and founding director of McGill University’s Centre for Medicine, Law and Ethics was mentioned by the media more than 13,000 times.
“If it’s measured by how much you’re in the media, than I guess I’m controversial,” she says with a smile in her voice.
Somerville will be the headliner at the National Presbyterian Women’s Gathering to be held next May in Richmond Hill, Ont. And despite (or perhaps because of) her controversial viewpoints, the event’s organizers are hoping Somerville will be the big draw — and will challenge and inspire the women who attend.
As an author, regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and the online independent news site, The Mark (where she tackles questions on abortion, maternal health benefits, and religion and public policy), Somerville has had the luxury of voicing her oft-criticized opinions. A nomination to the Order of Canada was reportedly declined because she was “too controversial,” and her honorary doctorate from Ryerson University was met with disdain by some, thanks to her criticism of same-sex marriage.
She admits she didn’t start out as conservative as she is now — saying her views towards same-sex marriage, male circumcision, and gay parenting were once much more liberal. “It used to be that if you were radically liberal, you were labeled as controversial. But today, if you say anything traditional, you’re regarded as controversial.”
Somerville spoke with the Presbyterian Record’s senior writer, Amy MacLachlan, in July. Below is an excerpt from that conversation:
Presbyterian Record: What led you to create the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill?
Margaret Somerville: It started with the growth of modern applied ethics and bioethics. When the first heart transplant occurred in the late 1960s [1967] by Christiaan Barnard, the world was really stunned. The heart was the symbol of life — you were alive if it was beating, and you were dead if it wasn’t. For the first time, there was a live person walking around with the heart of a dead person. We were astonished with that. It was also a time when a lot of people were abandoning religion, and we were recognizing that multicultural, pluralistic societies were growing. We also saw individualism and secularism expanding.
Ethics in medicine has a universal impact. It doesn’t have the usual boundaries of rich and poor, north and south, though today that’s becoming more common, and we’ve become more conscious of it lately. It raises very serious ethical problems, and people are talking about it now — about how to provide a standard health care level for all people.
So the Centre was a space to explore those issues.
PR: Do you consider yourself controversial?
MS: I’m labeled as controversial. There are people who seek controversy for publicity, but I don’t seek it out. Sometimes controversy comes at a pretty serious cost to myself, and there are times when I think this is too hard, that I can’t do it anymore. But I try to speak with integrity and to certainly speak what I believe. I have a policy to not sign any letters or to be part of any group, but to always act as an individual. I’m not saying that being part of a group is unnecessary; it’s good and people must do it. But for me, no one can say, “Oh, she’s saying that because she’s a member of whatever.” If I say I believe it, it’s because I believe it. Not because I’m part of a group. That’s not to say I won’t change my mind. I will; I have changed my mind on several issues such as infant male circumcision and gay parenting. I’m less liberal now. As I’ve found out more about these things, and as I’ve become acquainted with people who have been harmfully affected, I speak out to try to prevent those harms before they happen. We can use ethics to do that.
PR: Are people today afraid to stand up for what they believe in, especially if that position is based on faith values?
MS: They are afraid — and have reason to be — but that shouldn’t be an excuse not to do so. This talk of being politically correct and tolerant of everything, well, they’re tolerant unless you disagree with their viewpoint.
[Because of voicing my opinions] I’ve had to have bodyguards, a kidnap-proof car. It’s a bit James Bondy!I have been given a huge number of honours, and I am deeply grateful for them. So I have felt like I have the freedom to speak, without a lot of risk to my professional life. But that’s not true for a lot of young people. I’ve had young academics come up to me and say, “I agree with you, but I would never, ever have said so.” They risk not getting tenure, or losing their job. It is a huge danger in our universities today.
All voices have the right to be heard, and to be heard with respect.
PR: We hear so much about how Western society is secular, but is that really the case? Does religion influence much more than we realize or want to admit?
MS: I’ve been to Europe three times in the last seven weeks. In Europe, there seems to be a revival of more traditional values. It remains to be seen where we’re going. I would have said five years ago, we were in for an intense secularism, but now I’m not so sure. It’s kind of like TV. When you have it, you don’t appreciate it, but when you lose it, there’s a huge hole. I think we miss religion. Maybe not religion in all its traditional forms, but the way religion functioned and what it gave us, and our loss of ability to find shared values. We have to find ways to do that. That’s what religion did for us before.
I think they might be weaved all together. That’s not to say all faiths will conflate and become one thing; they will still exist as separate strands, but our experiences of sharing a common reality will come together, so no matter where we come from, we can agree that something is moral or immoral. Maybe we won’t do something for the same reason, but we should agree that’s what should be done. Too often we start from where we disagree, but we should start from where we agree and move towards where we disagree.
PR: Do right and wrong even exist without religion?
MS: That’s an excellent question right now. I believe that everyone is spiritual, whether or not they are religious … Genetically, we’ve got receptors for spirituality, but they need to be activated by an environmental trigger.
One of the big questions today, and it is one of the big divisions in ethics, is between the moral revisionists* (such as Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University), the atheists, who say there is no external compass of right and wrong. There is only a personal decision of what is right and wrong, stemming from the question of does it create more good than harm? If an action creates more good, then it’s right. If it creates more harm, then it’s wrong. But I don’t believe that. I’m a principle-based ethicist. I believe there are rights and wrongs based on a supernatural* reality; that from that comes a natural law and natural morality. There is a truth quite apart from any we can construct.
I’m working on all these questions, and getting into a lot of trouble! McGill keeps track of how many times their professors are in the media. During a four-month period, I was in the media 13,600 times. The next highest academic in Canada was mentioned 6,200 times or so. How do you measure controversy? If it’s measured by how much you’re in the media, than I guess I’m controversial.”
To read more from Margaret Somerville, contact the WMS Bookroom for her publications.
* Dr. Somerville has subsequently suggested that she used the terms “relativists” and “metaphysical.”
