In Passionate Response to "Shafia Case - could it have been prevented?"

It's very hard to evaluate the success of any preemptive measures. I'm sure that the sectors responsible for oversight, which include local law enforcement, school officials, and health professionals, did the best they could under the circumstances to prevent any tragedy of human life. However, like what Brianna said, the culture barrier between ethnic Afghans and Canadians caused this case to circumvent protective measures. Also, the plethora of cultures has made policy-making extremely difficult. Often, the best policy for politicians is no policy at all. Sitting on the fence is the only way to prevent collateral damage on their party's reputation or their own election hopes.

What I would say is due to the enormous sensitivity, and rare occurance of such cases, these circumstances cannot be successfully prevented, nor should we take action to prevent these circumstances. I do not mean that human life is invaluable, but that liberty and fairness is more important to the preservation of any values which we hold as a society. If we did take action to prevent "honor-killings", what would result is ethnic discrimination beyond that of "random" security checks at airports. Because a few individuals of Arabic descent chose to attack the Western world through acts of terrorism, the whole Arabic world has been thrown into warfare and chaos. What's more, American, Canadian, and World citizens of Arabic descent are persecuted based on their superficial appearances. They are slotted into profiles of bad men even though they have done nothing to deserve it.

If we do decide to actively prevent these "honor-killings" beyond the measures that we are already taking, what will take place next is far worse than the loss of human life. It is life not worth living. The government and third-party institutions will be able to intrude on the lives of innocent people "on suspicion." It will lead to the loss of democratic rights as we know it, and the proliferation of ever-greater power for the government to monitor and control the lives which we hold to be private. Our sanctity of body and mind will be stolen, democracy will fester and rot, and eventually, the values which we so champion will no longer be our champions.