Her.meneutics: Citing Modesty, Two Women Refuse Full-Body Scans

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The Christianity Today women's blog provides news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women. We cover news stories and books related to international justice and evangelism, pregnancy and sexual ethics, marriage, parenting, and celibacy, pop culture, health and body image, raising girls, and women in the church and parachurch.

Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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March 8, 2010

Citing Modesty, Two Women Refuse Full-Body Scans

Pope Benedict and Muslim scholars have warned that the scanners — slated for major U.S. airports — violate principles of human dignity and chastity.

Katelyn Beaty

Two Muslim women boarding a plane in Manchester, England, last week became trailblazers in the debate over full-body scanners by refusing to undergo the scan, citing religious and medical restrictions. They forfeited their £400 airline tickets to Pakistan, as such scans became compulsory in the UK in February. The women are the first known passengers to refuse a scan under the new rule. Muslim scholars in the U.S. have already issued a fatwa against full-body scans as a violation of Islamic teaching on modesty.

More airports worldwide are installing full-body scanners after the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Muslim Nigerian carrying explosives in his underwear on a Detroit-bound flight. The first round of 150 full-body scanners slated for major U.S. airports are being installed today in Boston’s Logan International Airport.

The Times (UK) reports that full-body scans give security staff detailed images of passengers’ nude bodies, which human rights groups decry as a “virtual strip search.” According to the Associated Press, the images are viewed in a private room and conceal passengers’ faces to protect identity. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has assured passengers that the scans are optional and that images are deleted. (This may not be true outside the U.S.; GetReligion’s Mollie Ziegler Hemingway notes that one Indian celebrity has already said he received printed images of his nude body at Heathrow.)

All these assurances may not be enough to protect passengers’ dignity, said Pope Benedict XVI at a meeting with airline staff February 20. “It is essential never to lose sight of respect for the primacy of the person,” he said. While he acknowledged this would be challenging given “the economic crisis, which is bringing about problematic effects in the civil aviation sector, and the threat of international terrorism, which is targeting airports and aircraft,” the Pope urged that “the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity.”

At the Chicago Tribune’s Seeker blog, Sister Anne Flanagan said her own objections to the scans stem from Catholics’ sacramental view of the body, one that says it reveals spiritual truths about God’s created intent for human sexuality and relationships. The sacramental view, expressed in Pope John Paul II’s magnum opus, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, holds that the body is not a mere receptacle for the soul. Sister Flanagan explains:

It is not true that our body is just a sort of envelope for a sexlessly generic soul, or that it is a strange animal-like appendage to the "important," spiritual part, but that really doesn't matter in itself. . . .We ought to be alert to the tremendous significance of being "bodied persons": God became incarnate so he could relate to us in this very human way! So there's something really not right . . . with a "revelation" of the body that takes place anonymously, apart from personal communion, in which I am being revealed to someone I cannot see or know; whose reaction I cannot gauge; whose trustworthiness with the sacredness of my body's image I am asked to take on the good faith of the [TSA].

The Muslim scholars who issued a fatwa rooted their argument in chastity rather than a sacramental view of the body. “[A full-body scan] is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” said the Fiqh Council of North America. “Islam highly emphasizes haya [modesty] and considers it part of faith. The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.” The council urged Muslims to opt for physical pat-downs, which the TSA provides with officers of the same sex.

No major Protestant groups have issued statements about the scanners.

If full-body scans were to arrive at an airport near you, would you opt out of them? If so, what would be your biblical-theological reasons for doing so?

Comments

I have had a full body scan before, and I will not mind having it again. It is a breeze and definitely much better than the alternative - a really, really intrusive pat down. As for the images, there is no way to identify the individual. That Indian celebrity who was blackmailed should just laugh off the attempt, because that image could have been anyone.

I'm Catholic, don't look great nude and have no objections to a full body scan. Electronic strip searching is fast and easy, and your dignity stops where my safety begins.

With full body checks, how will terrorists be able to do their business?

Hmmm interesting thing to ponder on. I think, if everyone is doing it it doesn't feel as "violating." ^.^ Is that wrong? Plus, the faces are shielded. Don't doctors examine our naked bodies too? For them we have to show faces! I don't know how it's done in real life, but it says here it's done in a private room? I don't see what the problem is, especially for the Catholic church. For the Muslims it's a different story obviously, because they have a twisted way of thinking, namely they treat their women like owned pieces of meat whose bodies are worth more than their souls. Not everyone, I suppose, but many. Sorry if this offends anybody; I'd just been alerted to the fact that what I say often offends people..

I object. Plain and simple. And I find it highly disturbing to hear Americans say, "Whatever it takes to be safe..."

Traveling used to be fun when they only checked your carry-on luggage and your boarding pass.

Then they started making you take off your belt, because of the "belt bomber", then your shoes because of the "sneaker bomber", then they checked your liquids because of the "water bomber", now they want to strip you naked because of the "underwear bomber".

Lighten up people! I mean, it had to come to this! Right? They really are weirdos out there who want you and all the other passengers on the flight to join them in "paradise" with or without your permission. If you were in charge of security at the airport what would you do?

By the way have you heard of the "hat bomber"?

It's a pretty sad day for the Church when Moslem women are so concerned about their modesty - something our Lord commands us to uphold, by the way (does I Timothy 2:9 ring a bell?) -- that they will forfeit tickets while Christians just yawn and sigh and genuflect to the State's Satanic demands.
The TSA has been caught time and again in outright lies about these machines, such as insisting they're being perfectly safe (they aren't: one of the two technologies being used is carcinogenic) and that they can't save or send the pictures they take (they can and do---not b/c of the Indian star, whose story has been discredited, but b/c EPIC through a FOIA request found the TSA's specs for these contraptions -- and they require a "Save" function).
If Christians are so willing to obey the State on a simple, utterly evil thing like exposing their God-given bodies to government agents, how easily will they cave on harder stuff, like not paying taxes to fund abortions?
God help us all.

And no small coincidence that MUSLIM scholars are the ones ordering refusals to do it. We can be sure it's just protecting modesty they are worried about?

no man should see any part of my body but my husband. i am 25 and a Christian, and it is offensive to think that just b/c my face is blurred out that someone should even see the 'outline' of my nude body. i will simply not fly if this were the case. we should obey the goverment unless they do something that is against or christian morals.

I will never ever forget watching the live footage of living human beings falling from the World Trade Center buildings as the buildings flamed uncontrollably behind them. People on fire, people jumping to their deaths, some holding hands -- don't tell me about full body scans being "evil" or "Satanic" or "objectionable". You want to see evil? Satanic? Objectionable? Go back and look at the film from 9/11. Now THAT is evil, Satanic, and objectionable. If you are offended by the full body scan, stay off the plane.

I've been scanned, and it did not seem that much of a big deal to me. Perhaps procedures in other airports are different. In my case, the person who views the scan is in a different room, and does not even know what your name is, and does not see your face. And the shape they see is a little distorted by your clothes anyway -- they ended up needing to pat my down because they couldn't tell if I was hiding something under my shirt, or if it was simply my clothes or my stomach. So obviously it is not the same as looking at someone nude.

I think part of loving my neighbor in this case means: whether or not I am okay with being scanned (I'm okay with it - although I think it's not the solution) I stand with those who object. In my understanding of a free and democratic country innocent passengers should not have to feel degraded in order to make others feel safe.

I think as long as we remember it, the events that led to 9-11 will never happen again... It was regular people who thwarted the plans of the hijackers on flight 93 once they heard about the towers and realized what was going to happen. The regular citizens are our hope for security - not its liability.

Instead of making policies that make citizens feel degraded and alienate people who value modesty - God's people should really think of a better way.

Well we expected this from our shameless trashy society. At least the muslims stand up for what they believe. Our people have become trash no self respect or dignity. They just parade themselves naked whenever they get the chance.

Iam actualy sick Iam part of this society

I'm more concerned about potential health effects of the scans. Supposedly they are harmless, but how many times being scanned is harmless? I certainly would not do it if I were pregnant, and would not allow my children to be scanned either. However, I also wouldn't allow my children to be "patted down," so I guess next time we fly, there will be some big choices to be made.

Personally, I'm not comfortable with not knowing who's going to be looking at images of my naked body - features blurred out or not. I'd rather be patted down in private by a woman than have a scan done that could be viewed by goodness-knows-who, and (if the information above is correct) potentially stored for an unknown period of time and accessed by persons unknown. As for the question 'who would be interested in viewing anonymous and, for the most part, probably quite unattractive images of naked people?', I really don't want to dwell too much on the answer to that question.

I would be interested in hearing how other non-Muslim (and, sorry, non-American) women feel about this.

i haven't an objection to the scanning, although i certainly don't agree with excessively intrusive government measures either. and when it comes down to it, the patriot act disturbs me much more than digital imaging.
however, we need to remember that flights on airplanes and access to secured airport terminals are part of the purchasing and consumption aspect of the (air) transportation product. I hate standing in security lines, taking off my shoes, starting up my computer- but I know to be prepared for it. If you know you are flying through an airport with body scanners, choose a different airport, or take a greyhound or amtrack. If you do not like the product or services associated with the air transportation product, choose a different transportation product. like everything else in this preoccupied country, one must think of these things as products and consumption.

Get scanned or take a bus.

It is sort of strange that we need these body scans because of Moslems, no wonder they complain. What about the millions of dollars everyone is paying to supply them. That money would have been better spent on helping the needy. The same could be said about all the extra funds being spent for security because of Moslem extremists.

Perhaps we should look at what truly successful airports do for security - such as El Al Airport in Israel. They don't do pat-downs or body scanners, yet their airport is one of the safest in the world. I do have several concerns about these things - such as when small children are given these invasive pat-downs, which they would not understand as security, but as a physical violation. As for the body scanners, they 1) do not detect plastics or explosives, so would not have stopped the underwear bomber, 2) emit radiation which is physically harmful after a lot of exposure, and 3) have had images saved. Gizmodo.com posted 100 of the 35,000 images saved and kept on record at the courthouse in Orlando, FL, which they gained access to via a Freedom of Information Act petition. As long as I must have my modesty violated in one way or another, I will not fly.

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