One of the joys of writing a column is receiving feedback from readers who disagree with you, in a way that doesn’t make you feel degraded or insulted. Arguing one’s truth in a gentle and civil manner is the desirable norm of debate.
A medical doctor from Augusta, Georgia, USA, sent a rejoinder to a piece I wrote Nov. 10 where, as in several times in the past, I argued for the banning of boxing for reasons based on moral theology enunciated by the Vatican and on medical research articulated by the prestigious American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and other similar groups of experts. In 1991, 11 other national medical associations “confirmed their opposition to boxing, and expressed their concerns on its dangers, believing that ultimately it should cease to exist. These medical associations state that modern medical technology demonstrate beyond doubt that chronic brain damage is caused by the recurrent blows to the head experienced by all boxers, amateur and professional alike.” (Wikipedia).
For the information of Dr. Steven Brooks, the opinions I wrote about are not mine. I merely quoted those who expressed them. And I was the manager of the Amoranto Sports Complex in Quezon City in the mid-80s which had a boxing facility and a program for amateur boxing. Several boxers from that gym represented the Philippines as members of the national team. But that was before I took up the campaign against boxing.
All proponents of boxing anchor their arguments on statistics showing that other contact sports such as soccer, American football, rugby, motor racing, lacrosse and hockey, likewise pose risks of injury to the players.
Arguing on this premise completely misses the issues and concerns pointed out by medical experts and the Vatican, to wit: “Other types of sports, such as rugby or motor racing for example, carry some risk of injury and death, but none of these is pursued with the purpose of causing harm).
British Medical Association members have no intention to curtail such sports, but rather ensure that the health and safety and medical care are of the highest standards possible.
Similarly, the BMA does not seek a ban on proper martial arts sports such as karate and judo where avoidance of harm is intended, and the onus is on technical ability with wins scored on points.
Here are some more for the appreciation of Dr. Brooks: World Medical Association policy (2005) states that: “Boxing is a dangerous sport. Unlike most other sports, its basic intent is to produce bodily harm in the opponent Boxing can result in death and produces an alarming incidence of chronic brain injury. For this reason, WMA recommends that boxing be banned”.
And this: “The President of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, (2006) stated: ‘International events based on the spirit of goodwill – such as Olympic and Commonwealth Games – are no place for interpersonal violence and injury” and that ‘it’s time to remove boxing from the sporting line-up’”.
The Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano in 1986 editorialized: “Is it legitimate to continue to accept a sport whose fundamental aim is ‘to inflict corporal damage to the adversary’ as the World Medical Assembly held in Venice some months ago defined it? Physicians are in the majority of one mind in responding that it is neither legitimate nor moral. Nonetheless, boxing remains a violent sport, if not in the intention of the contestants at least in its form of expression. The ring is a stage of confrontation, said to be reliable and regulated but always brutal and sometimes savage…No sporting discipline nor any kind of ‘show’ can be accepted by a civic conscience if it endangers human life. Much worthier causes call for putting lives at stake.”
In short, Dr. Brooks, you can suit up your young boxers in metal like the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, or full-body armor like RoboCop, and that will not make boxing ethically and morally acceptable for any human being, much more children, to pursue.
On your reference to my using the term “child abuse” to describe children boxing “is not only an absurd hyperbole aimed at stirring up passions…”, I think that you have so unkindly insulted an eminent colleague of yours, Dr. George Lundberg, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association who with a great number of physicians, lawyers, sociologists and other experts contend that younger boxers face a greater risks–and this might legally constitute child abuse.
Wrote Dr. Lundberg: It is predictable damage, and it involves children. And if adults promote, for their own pleasure, children bashing each other, hurting each other, then this makes a pretty good case of child abuse”.
For the benefit of Dr. Brooks, I quote the following: “The British Medical Association has been an authority on boxing since 1982 and opposes both amateur and professional boxing and calls for a complete ban on boxing. As a first step, there should be a ban on children below the age of consent from boxing. Therefore the BMA is campaigning for a ban on boxing in those under the age of 16.”
I will continue to campaign against boxing, particularly children and youth boxing, where, as chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission and noting the national mania for Filipino boxers to win the first ever Olympic gold medal, I wrote an article with the title posing the question: “Brain-damaged youth for an Olympic gold?”
