Hailsham students

The Hailsham students are taught sexuality very casually. It is not immoral at all before marriage. In fact marriage isn't even mentioned I don't think. They are not expected to have children either. They are told that they cannot have children. They are taught how the people "outside" Hailsham treat sex though. The students at Hailsham are very disconnected to the world outside of where they live. It is disturbing to me that there are little values about sexual immorality.
Before, I was thinking that the reason the Hailsham students were so secluded and feared was because they had a disease or something like cancer. Now I think that these students are clones, or something of the sort. The book, Never Let Me Go, is a science fiction, and I think that it is supposed to be in the future. The students main purpose in life is to give donations. They do not have any other purpose. They cannot have children, they are secluded and not taught the same things as other students. They are "special" and different from the population outside of Hailsham, they are even different from their teachers.
I really like the story so far, mainly because I am so confused still. It will be very interesting figuring out the answers to all of the unanswered questions.

Anna's Topic on the Aids research in developing countries

To be completely honest, I do not know where I stand on the issue discussed in class on Wednesday, about research in Uganda. While reading the summary of the article presented, I noticed that studies in Third World countries were "equivalent" to sweat shops. Taking that idea, the research sounds absurd and completely unethical. However, the research in no way hurt the Ugandans. I might even venture to say that it helped them more than hurt them. Then there is the problem of creating a "double standard," which I do not think that I still fully understand that concept.

Another idea, however, caught my attention. "To allow [relativism] to seep into the international and national ethical standards will open the door to an idea that [condones] the possible abuse of those least able to protect themselves." (Clark, 2002) This idea jumped out at me because I hear "relativism" sometimes while discussing religion. To say that something is okay for one person, but not okay for another, is the relativity of that something. People tend to say that tolerance for one anothers' religions is important. Then to see relativism being bad with ethical standards (religion being as hard to define as ethics) seems to contradict the use of relativism. I agree that condoning a program that could lead to the abuse of people is bad. I also believe that relativism is not justifiable in religion, as well as ethics.

Clark, P. (2002) Aids research in developing countries: Do the ends justify the means? Medical Science Monitor, 8, 5-16.