Journal: White Man, Know Your Place

When Perry Hendricks sent his philosophical essay to the academic journal, The New Bioethics, he wasn’t expecting much attention, for he had published there before. Thereafter, the journal formally accepted his new essay on February 12th 2024, before placing it on hold just 3 days later. A mob of X (Twitter) users had become irate about the paper’s contents, or as the journal put it, “complaints were raised”.

His essay, titled Abortion Restrictions Are Good for Black Women argued that since morally wrong actions are bad for those who choose them, abortions are therefore also bad for those who choose them, who are disproportionately black women. Therefore, restrictions and bans on abortion actually help that demographic. It’s a different way of looking at the ubiquitous argument that black women are being disproportionately victimized by such bans because of their elevated per-capita usage of abortion.

We can view some of the scholarly retorts on Twitter, which originally got the publication to place the piece on hold:

The account above, “@AngryBlackLady”, has “The Real Racist™” in her bio, in case her sentiments were unclear. She is implying that Perry doesn’t have the right to comment because he’s shown to be a white male with two white children. Perry has dozens of peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals, holds a PhD in philosophy, and taught the subject at the University of Minnesota.

Apparently, Kirsten has yet to consider that the vast majority of our laws penalize immoral actions and encourage moral ones. Further, one can presume from her argument that she thinks that it should be permissible to starve a baby, even after birth, if a woman wants to.

This one is interesting, because it presupposes that “moralism”, or having moral judgements, has no place in healthcare at all—a field in which decisions have to be made about life and death regularly, whether in the realms of abortion, IVF, embryo experimentation, organ donation, etc. She’s an associate professor at Durham Law School in the UK.

When The New Bioethics finally got back in touch with Perry, Editor-in-chief Matt James of St. Mary’s University made two primary arguments in a letter describing why the essay would not be published. Here’s the e-mail in full:

“Dear Perry,

I am writing in regard to the manuscript you submitted to The New Bioethics (TNB) entitled “Abortion Restrictions Are Good for Black Women”.

Your submission was originally accepted without me seeing it due to a technical fault in the publisher's systems, for which they apologise. The standard process for TNB is that all accepted articles need to be approved by the Editor-in-Chief, and as this process was not fully followed originally this has now taken place. As Editor-in-Chief I have the final decision as I would do for any other submission.

I have now completed this process of review with two peer reviewers. We have strong reservations with publishing the article and share significant concerns over the academic quality and rigour of the paper which does not stand up to scrutiny. Requesting revisions be made to the manuscript would not improve it in any way that would address the major concerns identified and change this decision. I am therefore writing to confirm that the accept decision has been rescinded and that the article will not be published.

The journal is about fostering debate and furthering discussion which are times can be controversial such as the matter of abortion, but this must be done whilst upholding academic quality. Legitimate academic debate should not be reserved for scholars of a particular race or gender, or ought to be off-limits for certain scholars. Nevertheless, in cases such as this one, where white authors write about racial inequalities, or when male authors write about women's rights, this needs to be done with a considerable degree of circumspection, humility, and sensitivity. This manuscript falls short in that regard for the reasons identified in the reviewers’ feedback, which I copy below. I hope that you will find them to be constructive and helpful.

Whilst I appreciate this is a disappointing outcome on this occasion, I thank you for considering The New Bioethics and I wish you well in your work and research.

Best wishes,

Matt

Matt’s arguments can best be summarized as:

1. He didn’t read it sooner due to a technical error.

2. A white male doesn’t have the right to comment on such issues.

While the first claim seems dubious, considering that they placed the article on hold only after internet outrage, let us focus on the second, so as not to over-speculate. It’s quite jarring to see that the race and gender of an academic would blatantly be used as the basis for rejecting his essay, but more so that the editor-in-chief would feel so confident in his moral righteousness as to be willing to say so in writing. While bowing to the pressure of indignant leftists on X (Twitter), he felt no fear of reprisal upon sending such comments to Perry. That’s what happens when one believes that his stance and actions are both normal and acceptable—and doubtless they are becoming normal within that industry.

Perry’s paper passed the first review with the initial reviewers, but after the editor-in-chief stepped in, entirely new reviewers were chosen. Do be reminded that this is an academic journal that is supposed to value scientific rigor and objectivity. In fact, the editor (Matt) clearly violated the publication’s guidelines, which has similar guidance to just about every journal and place of employment in the modern world:

Journal editors should give unbiased consideration to each manuscript submitted for publication. They should judge each on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the author(s).

Yet despite such written policies, it’s easy to see that in practice, white people are increasingly being excluded from these protections. They are the group with the least social capital, and are being villianized for society's ills. The modern world stands in rejection of both antiquity and Christendom, and needs someone to blame for the past that it rejects. Academia, the media, the entertainment industries, and the corporate world are all adopting positions of penalizing one racial group and one sex, as the kind of villains, or better said, scapegoats.

The particular man in this story is not just a philosopher but more importantly, a father, who values human life, however young. He was willing to engage in philosophical arguments on the topic of abortion, and was lambasted by people who were unable to articulate their positions.

The letter from the journal editor indicated bias about the topic, such as with the phrasing, “when male authors write about women’s rights”. That word choice alone indicates bias, for to conflate abortion with a woman’s right is to suggest that the unborn are not people (else they would also have rights, and roughly half are female).

So while some scream about Perry’s supposed racism and hostility towards women, they are unable to show how he is guilty of any of these things. They’re not even attempting to. For them, blind to the irony, it’s enough to say that as a white man, he should know his place.