German Justice - Postmodern relativism at its best

Here's a story to think about. A female German national, born in Morocco, suffered serious physical abuse at the hands of her husband, a male German national, also born in Morocco. She files for urgent divorce, seeing that her husband is also threatening to kill her. Well, a female German judge ruled against her request, arguing that both parties to the dispute were Muslims, and that allegedly the Quran doesn't rule out this sort of violence. Therefore, when considering the cultural background of the two parties in the dispute, so argued the judge, there was no unreasonable harm done by the husband (after all, we know from watching TV on the odd occasion, that women get killed by irate Muslim husbands and/or their families occasionally in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran). The argument essentially was that we should be respectful of the cultural difference that expresses itself in such actions.

Well, this kind of postmodern hogwash was quickly and sensibly dealt with in Germany. The judge in question was removed from the bench and someone else is hearing the woman's request for an urgent divorce.

Why not sell your wife's kidney?

DIE WELT, a conservative German broadsheet, reports that a Pakistani national sold his wife's kidney so that he could pay for the purchase of a new tractor. His cunning plan (successfully executed, mind you) involved beating her to pulp in order to have a pretext for having her admitted into hospital. Once there she was quickly put to sleep by medical staff and the relevant organ extracted. Of course, she was the only one not knowing about this until a medical check-up some 18 months later revealed what had happened. Remarkably, relatives of the couple were in it as well as the medical staff.

So, while we go on about informed consent in biomedical research and health care practice... there's also the Pakistan version of the same.

Here's a pretty good documentary about organ sale in Pakistan.