In this paper we will argue in favor of federal funding of elective abortion, more specifically in support of Medicaid funding. To do so, we will address the restrictions on public funding presently in place and demonstrate that the various justifications offered in their defense are in­adequate. We will then suggest that the ‘failure to enable’ represented by a ban on Federal funding is morally equivalent to an outright prohibition on abortion for the target population. Just as a moral equivalence (...) can be established between killing and letting die in symmetrical cases, like criteria for equivalence can be established that help to identify those failures to make possible that are morally indistinguishable from proscriptions. On this basis, it can be shown that restrictions on Federal funding in such contexts can be thought to carry the same moral liability as prohibitions. (shrink)

If elective abortion is publicly funded, then the government is obligated to take active measures designed to reduce its prevalence. I present two arguments for that conclusion. The first argument is directed at those pro-choice thinkers who hold that while some or all elective abortions are morally wrong, they still ought to be legally permitted and publicly subsidized. The second argument is directed at pro-choice thinkers who hold that there is nothing morally wrong with elective abortion and that it should (...) be both legally permitted and publicly subsidized. The second argument employs premises that generalize beyond the abortion debate and that may serve to shed light on broader questions concerning conscience and the requirements of political compromise in a democracy. (shrink)

Insurance coverage of abortion varies widely across the United States and is an extensively debated issue. Medicaid coverage of abortion is particularly relevant because the majority of abortion patients are poor or low‐income and are thus often covered by Medicaid. Since the Hyde Amendment was first passed in 1976, federal Medicaid funds have been banned from covering the costs of elective abortion. Although states are allowed to use their own funds to cover abortions for their Medicaid recipients, only 17 states (...) currently do so. Of these 17 states, only five cover abortion costs voluntarily; the others do so pursuant to court order. The medical literature includes few ethical analyses of the Hyde Amendment’s ban on Medicaid funding of elective abortions. To fill this gap, we perform an ethical analysis of federal policy to fund elective abortions using a consequentialist approach focused on consequences for pregnant women and their children. (shrink)

In this issue we include contributions from the individuals presiding at the panel All in a Jurnal's Work: A BABEL Wayzgoose, convened at the second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. Sadly, the contributions of Daniel Remein, chief rogue at the Organism for Poetic Research as well as editor at Whiskey & Fox , were not able to appear in this version of the proceedings. From the program : 2ND BIENNUAL MEETING OF THE BABEL WORKING GROUP CONFERENCE “CRUISING IN (...) THE RUINS: THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINARITY IN THE POST/MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY” SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2012: SESSION 13 MCLEOD C.322, CURRY STUDENT CENTER NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MA. Traditionally, a wayzgoose was a celebration at the end of a printer’s year, a night off in the late fall before the work began of printing by candlelight. According to the OED, the Master Printer would make for the journeymen “a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night.” Following in this line, continent. proposes in its publication(s) a night out and a good Feast, away from the noxious fumes of the Academy and into a night of revelry which begins, but does not end, at the alehouse or Tavern. continent. proposes that the thinking of the Academy be freed to be thought elsewhere, in the alleys and doorways of the village and cities, encountered not in the strictly defined spaces of the classroom and blackboard (now white) but anticipated and found where thinking occurs. Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals (from the Anglo-Fr. jurnal , "a day," from O.Fr. jornel , "day, time; day's work," hence the journalist as writer of the news of the day ) have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control (insemination of those ideas has been formalized in the classroom, in seminar). In contrast, the academic journal is post-partum and has been an old-boys club, an insider trading network in which truths are (re)circulated against themselves, forming a Maginot Line against whatever is new, or the distinctly challenging. All in a Jurnal’s Work will discuss (in part) the ramifications of cheap start-up publications that are challenging the traditional ensconced-in-ivory academic journals and their supporting infrastructures. The panel will be seeking a questioning (as a challenging) towards the discipline of knowledge production/fabrication (of truth[s]) and the event of the Academy (and its publications) as it has evolved and continues to (d)evolve. Issues to be discussed will revolve around the power of academic publishing and its origins, hierarchical versus horizontal academic modules (is there a place for the General Assembly in academia?) and the evolving idea of the Multiversity as a site(s) of a (BABELing) multivocality in the wake of the University of Disaster. STAGE NOTES AND/AS/OR TRACK CHANGES: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND MAGICAL THINKING ON PRINTING: AN ELECTION AND A PROVOCATION Isaac Linder “Of course most people don’t think of editing/publishing as theatre but as something boring or parasitical (vis-à-vis a ‘source’ text), a textual backwater populated by people with glasses. But I think publishing a book today is theatre, socially networked theatre…. Facebook and Flickr are our era’s administered and generic version of sixties happenings!” — Tan Lin 1 ELECTING A MASCOT: THE BARNACLE GOOSE After pitching the idea for this panel with the editorial help of my continental cohorts I became fascinated with the image of the goose—dead and roasted as it may be—and its relationship to the space of the printing press. For a long while after proposing this gathering I was seriously under the sway of delusions of grandeur, imagining that we might roast a goose (or goosefu) and, preparing a meal as one prepares a text for publication, feast in something approaching a warm and well-nourished revelry. I should note, by way of introduction, that a substantial part of my undergraduate experience involved learning to typeset and work as a devil, as typesetters mischievously call it, in a letterpress studio. This accounts in part for my fascination and helps to explain the fact that, when I began to leaf around in medieval beastiaries in lieu of being able to procure a goose, I was almost immediately struck by a fantastic monster that I hereby elect to be the mascot for our so-called para-academic practice(s) the relatively famed, but no less fabulous for it, barnacle goose. The barnacle goose is a creature that first makes its way into 12th century manuscripts with Giraldus Cambrensis in 1186. Phenomenologically speaking the monster is a tree, a tree which, when approached closer is seen to be birthing geese budding from the buds that hang like ripe fruit from its branches. As the story goes these trees were found over water; the fledgling geese, once wrested from their pods would take off in flight or fall to their watery death, where they would be transformed into driftwood. In retrospect we presume the barnacle goose was posited as a consequence of the fact that geese born in more northern regions, migrating to Ireland and western Europe at large, were never seen to give birth. And I should note that this is far from the only other animal posited to be born from trees at around this time, my other favorite being medieval accounts of Moroccan tree-climbing goats. 2 In particular I’ve thrown up the mascot of the barnacle goose and singled it out from the quires of its beatiaries because its thoroughly hybrid origins lead us to name two very real creatures we can find point to in abundance; discrete materialities of the world cobbled together in textual fancy: on the one hand, the modern day barnacle goose , a common species of goose and, on the other, goose barnacles , a particular type of crustacean with incredible feathery tendrils and—I can't help but mention—one of the largest body mass to penis size ratios of all of the animals in the kingdom. Why is this bit of genital trivia relevant? Because they’re all hermaphroditic and in rare cases have been found to reproduce just with themselves—to inseminate themselves and give birth to their kin. So I think it must be stressed, as a symbol for what we’re really here to talk about, it's not a boy’s club thing so much as a very queer thing and, I contend, para - in every perfect sense of the word... Alongside the natural world, a monstrous imaginary concatenation; Alongside the hulls of so many institutional structures, funding sources and resources, Serresian parasites in all manner of mutualist, symbiotic, or properly parasitic positions; migratory and adrift; The tree, center stage in the 21st century adaptation of Waiting for Godot that is unraveling in ateliers across the world, is a barnacle goose birthing a flurry of miscegenous texts beyond medium and genre. PROVOCATION 1: CHAOSMOSIS “Genre is obsolete.” — Ray Brassier 3 And so, here I was getting carried away in daydreams about this generative and genealogical symbol under which to think all of the diverse projects we are all involved in as architects of the dressed word, (well dressed, bespoke, mansy, butch, careless, or roguishly punk attired as those words may be), when it also dawned on me, mid-flight here from Denver, that we are, even in lieu of being able to roast geese together, very much so literalizing what was never just the metaphor of the wayzgoose—a tradition, as you know, celebrated to mark the crepuscular turn into fall—as we are poised here, tomorrow being the first official day of fall on our calendars in the US marking the seasonal change from at which point it will no longer be possible to print without the aid of candlelight. A beautiful thought, that tipped into magical thinking on account of a little quick math I was able to do to come to the conclusion that we can all be delighted to know that as we proceed into the autumn with our printing projects always ahead of us and still to be set, we will tonight be bathed not only by the artificial candlelight of our screens, but also in part by photons raining down on us at 186,282 miles per second—photons from an aspect of 9 cyg, a stereoscopic binary deep within Cygnus, the swan but not-so-distant-relative of the goose, with a distance of 572 Light years away; photons that are raining down on us, will rain down on us all winter, have been raining down on us all year, and which had their origin in the combustion cores at a center of 9 cyg 572 years ago, in 1440, the year which we point to today as the common year in which, as we all know, Gutenberg is said to have brought the movable type to the western world, inaugurating an era that stretches farther into the past and future than McLuhan could justify; the proliferation of so much ambient text; insurrectionary coups on (and re-crystallizations of) genre—perceived amidst so much ambient light—enveloping this campus, just now. So, with that thought, and perhaps a new mascot, Nico Jenkins... NOTES “ Writing as Metadata Container, An Interview with Tan Lin ,” Chris Alexander, Kristen Gallagher, Danny Snelson, Gordon Tapper, Tan Lin, Jacket 2. January 20, 2012. To explore Lin’s notion of ambient textuality, plagiarism, and parallel, cross­platform publication in the 21st century, also see Lin’s sampled novel, “ The Patio and the Index ,” Triple Canopy 14, October 24, 2011, as well as the Edit event, organized at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, April, 2010 . For a fascinating and fecund exploration of medieval plant­animal hybrids in relation to media ecology, see Whitney Trettien, “ Becoming Plant: Magnifying a Microhistory of Media Circuits in Nehemiah Grew’s Anatomy of Plants (1682) .” postmedieval 3.1 (2012):97. See also the crowd­review version of the essay. “ Genre Is Obsolete .” Compléments de Multitudes . 28 (2007). (shrink)

There is an unusual region in Singapore called Hougang, whose residents have collectively rejected lavish, State-funded, urban renewal offers. As they have been doing so for more than two decades, Hougang stands out for its aged flats and amenities in one of the richest countries in the world. This curious situation arose from the Singapore Government's stance that urban renewal of electoral constituencies should depend on political affiliation. This essay looks at the ethics of the situation.

In concept, an image has both verticality and horizontal dimensions. Saturated images within this space have a horizon and can exceed that horizon. Within that horizon where the image dwells something chances itself upon the observer and the observed. Into that public space between self and other, students bring an instrumental approach to how they plan to deploy their new fund of knowledge, only to discover that the setting itself has become an event where surprise and upheaval disrupt their (...) illusion of self-continuity and the façade of familiarity. Phenomenologically, upheaval shows itself when givenness both precedes and participates in the giving of phenomena such as medical students’ “before and after” images of psychoanalysis. They discover and reconfigure their erstwhile absolute positions and values into reconfigurations of self and prior commitments. The turning point from their instrumental use of knowledge to reconfigurations of how they situate themselves in the world decisively comes when teaching and learning become an event in se that disturbs their sense of order.Following Husserl, phenomenological psychological observation has required us to go from the events of history to a sense of history. Would, however, that we could stay at the level of events much longer to see images explode and exceed their horizons from the illusion of order, and patterned repetition disrupted by surprise, upheaval and indeterminacy in the spirit of Alain Badiou! (shrink)

Preparing the Next Generation of Oral Historians is an invaluable resource to educators seeking to bring history alive for students at all levels. Filled with insightful reflections on teaching oral history, it offers practical suggestions for educators seeking to create curricula, engage students, gather community support, and meet educational standards. By the close of the book, readers will be able to successfully incorporate oral history projects in their own classrooms.

The elections of 1994 are described as a "political earthquake," a "triumph of conservatism" that reflects the continuing "drift to the right" on the part of the American population. The victorious Gingrich army of welltrained, well-funded "conservatives" call for a Contract with America that will finally "get government off our backs" so that we can return to the happy days when the free market reigned. They will restore "family values," ridding us of "the excesses of the welfare state" and the (...) other residues of the failed "big government" policies of New Deal liberalism and Johnson's "Great Society." By dismantling the "nanny state" they will succeed, where the Democrats have failed, to achieve the shared goal of all elite and leadership elements: to "create jobs for Americans" and win security and freedom for the "middle class." And they will take over and successfully lead the crusade to establish the American Dream of free market democracy, worldwide. (shrink)

This thesis explores the party system and political parties in the post-communist Albania. The overarching question of the thesis is what kind of party system has developed and what is the structure and organization of the Albanian political parties. The study analyses the period 1991-2013, that is the period between the first and the last general elections. I argue and test that the Albanian party system is stable and that the Albanian political parties are mass clientelist parties with deep territorial (...) penetration. The members of the parties have ceased to paly their traditional roles of the era of mass party and their attachment tot he party is not ideological but aims to ensure material benefits in return for the support provided to the party in elections times. As parties don't have many tools at hand they use their organizational structure to stabilize electorate, which explains the low level of electoral volatility in Albania and as consequence the stability of the party system. The thesis ahs an institutional embedded and a historically structured framework according to which party strategies are shaped by both the institutional context and the historical setting in which parties are created and operate. Following this line of reasoning, the weak societal roots of parties do not allow for party identification or voter alignment; the early access to public funding reduces the incentives of parties to create strong links with the members and society to collect financial resources and; in line with the features of the patrimonial communism which is characterized by clientelism and nepotism, the Albanian political parties develop the same relationships between the higher echelons of the party and the lower strata of the party structure. On the other hand the lack of media access in the early phase of organization and the need to stabilize the electorate, encourage the Albanian political parties to seek a deep territorial penetration which results in the creation of mass clientelist parties. In order to test the hypothesis I have undertaken three steps: a) the analyses of the Effective Number of Parties and Electoral Volatility; b) the internal distribution of power, the role of the membership and the relationship of the organization with society and; c) the identification of financial resources of the political parties. (shrink)

Many of our inherited civic institutions are dead or dying. We need an ambitious reform program to revive democratic life. This essay advances a four-pronged “citizenship agenda”: a campaign finance initiative granting each voter fifty “patriot dollars” to fund candidates and political parties of his or her choice; a proposal for a new national holiday, Deliberation Day, held before each national election, enabling citizens to deliberate on the merits of rival candidates; a system of federally financed electronic news-vouchers (...) to permit professional journalism to survive the destruction of its traditional business model; and a new form of citizenship inheritance, which provides $80,000 to all Americans as they start off life as adults. Working with collaborators, I have developed each of these initiatives at book length. This essay suggests how the “citizenship agenda” yields a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. (shrink)

This paper argues that a range of current AI systems have learned how to deceive humans. We define deception as the systematic inducement of false beliefs in the pursuit of some outcome other than the truth. We first survey empirical examples of AI deception, discussing both special-use AI systems (including Meta's CICERO) built for specific competitive situations, and general-purpose AI systems (such as large language models). Next, we detail several risks from AI deception, such as fraud, election tampering, and (...) losing control of AI systems. Finally, we outline several potential solutions to the problems posed by AI deception: first, regulatory frameworks should subject AI systems that are capable of deception to robust risk-assessment requirements; second, policymakers should implement bot-or-not laws; and finally, policymakers should prioritize the funding of relevant research, including tools to detect AI deception and to make AI systems less deceptive. Policymakers, researchers, and the broader public should work proactively to prevent AI deception from destabilizing the shared foundations of our society. (shrink)

Algorithmic probability and friends: Proceedings of the Ray Solomonoff 85th memorial conference is a collection of original work and surveys. The Solomonoff 85th memorial conference was held at Monash University's Clayton campus in Melbourne, Australia as a tribute to pioneer, Ray Solomonoff, honouring his various pioneering works - most particularly, his revolutionary insight in the early 1960s that the universality of Universal Turing Machines could be used for universal Bayesian prediction and artificial intelligence. This work continues to increasingly influence and (...) under-pin statistics, econometrics, machine learning, data mining, inductive inference, search algorithms, data compression, theories of intelligence and philosophy of science - and applications of these areas. Ray not only envisioned this as the path to genuine artificial intelligence, but also, still in the 1960s, anticipated stages of progress in machine intelligence which would ultimately lead to machines surpassing human intelligence. Ray warned of the need to anticipate and discuss the potential consequences - and dangers - sooner rather than later. Possibly foremostly, Ray Solomonoff was a fine, happy, frugal and adventurous human being of gentle resolve who managed to fund himself while electing to conduct so much of his paradigm-changing research outside of the university system. The volume contains 35 papers pertaining to the abovementioned topics in tribute to Ray Solomonoff and his legacy. (shrink)

This discussion paper considers how seldom recognised theories influence clinical ethics committees. A companion paper examined four major theories in social science: positivism, interpretivism, critical theory and functionalism, which can encourage legalistic ethics theories or practical living bioethics, which aims for theory–practice congruence. This paper develops the legalistic or living bioethics themes by relating the four theories to clinical ethics committee members’ reported aims and practices and approaches towards efficiency, power, intimidation, justice, equality and children’s interests and rights. Different approaches (...) to framing ethical questions are also considered. Being aware of the four theories’ influence can help when seeking to understand and possibly change clinical ethics committee routines. The paper is not a research report but is informed by a recent study in two London paediatric cardiac units. Forty-five practitioners and related experts were interviewed, including eight members of ethics committees, about the work of informing, preparing and supporting families during the extended process of consent to children’s elective heart surgery. The mosaic of multidisciplinary teamwork is reported in a series of papers about each profession, including this one on bioethics and law and clinical ethics committees’ influence on clinical practice. The qualitative social research was funded by the British Heart Foundation, in order that more may be known about the perioperative views and needs of all concerned. Questions included how disputes can be avoided, how high ethical standards and respectful cooperation between staff and families can be encouraged, and how minors’ consent or refusal may be respected, with the support of clinical ethics committees. (shrink)

Neuroethics studies the ethical, social, and legal issues raised by actual or expected advances in neuroscience. The relevant fields in neuroscience include, but are not limited to, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychopharmacology, neurogenetics, and neuropsychiatry. For many, neuroethics is best understood as a subcategory of bioethics, and although not all agree, for the purposes of the present collection of articles, this definition is assumed. Although bioethics as a field of study started in the early 1970s as a normative enterprise, mainly practiced (...) by philosophers and theologians, it has since become truly inter- and multidisciplinary, comprising also law, sociology, psychology, gender studies, disability studies, anthropology, history, and many other approaches. What we particularly wanted to do in this issue, however, was to find the most pertinent questions of neuroethics from the viewpoint of philosophy, and the call for papers was drafted accordingly.Tuija Takala, Ph.D., is Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland and Adjunct Professor of Social and Moral Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is president-elect of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care and holds a number of international editorial positions. Her current research interests lie in the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical aspects of philosophical bioethics.FootnotesThe editorial work for this special issue was supported by my project Neuroscience and Norms: Ethical and Legal Aspects of Norms in Neuroimaging / Ethical Concepts and Norms funded by the Academy of Finland. (shrink)

Comparative study of two languages of different structures has both theoretical and practical significance, enables somebody to identify similar and distinctive features, find universals and unique, helps to penetrate deeper into the inner workings of each of the compared languages and understand their national identity. The subject of our comparative study are languages of different structures - Russian and Bashkir languages - the first refers to a group of inflected, the second - to the group of agglutinative languages. Comparative research (...) of languages of different structures can be carried out in two aspects: theoretical and linguistic. In the first case, the analysis of language material is subjected without restriction at all levels of the language system. Data from these studies can be used in the creation of comparative descriptive grammars in lexicographical work and in the translation business. In the second case only microlanguage is matched, which is represented in the lexical and grammatical minimum of studied second language. Materials of such a compressed comparative analysis used in the practice of language teaching, mainly in teaching a second, non-native language. When a comparative study of languages in linguistic aspect is important direction of comparisons - what language is elected as the original one. Since the formation of national-Russian bilingualism is the subject of study of Russian language, as the source, it is desirable to choose Russian language. In this case, the reference point is the absorption of funds Russian as a second language. Materials of comparative study of two languages gives a clear idea of what linguistic phenomena and their symptoms are identical in them, what is only partially overlap, what is completely different. This knowledge will help to consciously manage the impact of native language on the studied non-native Russian language. In the comparative study of Russian and Bashkir languages done very little, but it is a lot of work has already begun. (shrink)

Panels, boards, and committees throughout society evaluate all manner of things by grading them, first individually and then collectively. Thus risks are prioritized, research proposals are funded, and candidates are shortlisted for jobs. It is not usual to pick winners in political elections by grading the candidates, but there are examples in history. This article takes up a question about the quality of judgments and decisions made by grading: under which conditions are they likely to be right? An answer comes (...) in the form of a jury theorem for median grading. Here, the collective grade for a thing is the median of its individually assigned grades—the one in the middle, when all of them are listed from "top" to "bottom." A second objective of this article is to suggest a solution to problems of voter ignorance in democracies. The idea is for democratic assemblies to use voting methods that make more of people's limited knowledge than do commonly used methods, such as majority voting. It turns out that in theory anyway, and perhaps also in practice, median grading can enable unenlightened assemblies to “track the truth”—even as majority voting would run them off the rails. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper combines insights from Deictic Space Theory and Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze the Tunisian President’s inaugural speech following his victory in the October 2019 elections. Detailed critical discourse analysis of the deictic exponents and the metaphorical image schemas employed in the text showed a Manichean opposition between the pure/good people versus the corrupt/evil ‘elites’, nostalgia to a pristine revolutionary moment, a pan-Arab discourse which anchors the Israeli-Palestinian conflict close to the local geography and a radical form of (...) populism, which grounds sovereignty within a transcendent theocratic cosmology. It is suggested that the upsurge of populism in Tunisian politics could be explained by the disenchantment with the deficient and rather ‘fake’ Islamo-nationalist consensus politics, the inappropriate neoliberal policies imposed by fund-raising bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as the fragmentation, if not total erosion, of viable public spaces for rational deliberation and decision-making processes as a result of the ‘digital era.’. (shrink)

Of the many factors contributing to the relative under-development across sub-Saharan Africa over the past five decades, one cause that is currently gaining more attention from both scholars and development practitioners is the lack of a transparent and accountable national budget process in most African countries. Although most African constitutions provide for a number of mechanisms of accountability within the budget process that are tasked with monitoring and sanctioning the misuse of public funds by the executive, various legal, capacity and (...) political constraints greatly hinder these mechanisms from playing an effective oversight role. This article examines the various challenges faced by four key mechanisms of accountability-parliamentary budget committees, supreme audit institutions, citizen budget monitoring and advocacy groups and elections-in holding leaders to account through the various stages of the budget process. However, despite these challenges, the article concludes by examining some recent progress and successes in the budget accountability arena. (shrink)

Neither of the two central moral and political obstacles to human embryonic stem cell research survives critical scrutinyThis paper argues that neither of the two central moral and political obstacles to human embryonic stem cell research survives critical scrutiny: first, that derivation of HESCs requires the destruction of human embryos which are full human persons or are at least deserving of respect incompatible with their destruction; second, that creation of HESCs using somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning is immoral. First, (...) different sources of HESCs are distinguished and the distinct moral objections that might apply to each. Second, it is argued that none of the properties plausibly conferring personhood on an entity is possessed by human embryos, and then shown how destruction of an embryo for research with the prospect of important medical benefits can be compatible with respecting it. Third, it is shown that the main objection to human cloning is only to reproductive cloning and that the objection to creating human beings with the intention of destroying them does not apply to SCNT. Finally, the concern that acquiring human eggs for SCNT would involve exploiting women donors is addressed, and it is shown how that can be avoided.Human embryonic stem cell research has become one of the more politically and morally controversial issues of our time. There is wide variability in what HESC research, if any, is permitted in countries around the world. Within the United States HESC research was a major issue in the last presidential election and some states, such as California, are devoting substantial public monies to fund this research while others prohibit it. In this paper I will explore some of the main obstacles to reaching consensus on this issue in the hope of at least narrowing the disagreement …. (shrink)

The author reviews the planned withdrawal of healthcare from the primary public hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital, of Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, at least half of the patients had no public or private health insurance and their care was financially supported by State and County funding as well as supplementation from Emory University. New administration in the elected positions of the State and County and at the University reached agreement to decrease care. The (...) University President stated that the Hippocratic Oath was no longer valid for salaried physicians who must follow the direction of their business manager. The author, a tenured Professor, was forcibly transferred to the Veterans Hospital, which also was withholding standard medical care, including life-saving medications. Organizing multiple concerned organizations including members of the King Center, the Carter Center, the Open Door Community Center, Gay Rights, etc., (Grady Coalition) multiple public protests were successful in raising the necessary funds to continue adequate care at Grady and begin an investigation of the Veterans Affairs Hospital. (shrink)

BackgroundDuring the last decade, the possibility for women to cryopreserve oocytes in anticipation of age-related fertility loss, also referred to as social egg freezing, has become an established practice at fertility clinics around the globe. In Europe, there is extensive variation in the costs for this procedure, with the common denominator that there are almost no funding arrangements or reimbursement policies. This is the first qualitative study that specifically explores viewpoints on the (lack of) reimbursement for women who had considered (...) to uptake at least one social egg freezing cycle in Belgium.MethodsTo understand the moral considerations of these women, drawing from twenty-one interviews, this paper integrates elements of a symbiotic empirical ethics approach and thematic analysis.ResultsWe identify four themes: (1) being confronted with unclear information; (2) financial costs as ongoing concern; (3) necessity of coverage; (4) extent of reimbursement. In the first theme, we found that some women were concerned about the lack of clear information about the cost of social egg freezing. In the second theme, we report moral sentiments of injustice and discrimination which some women attributed to their struggles and needs not being recognised. The third theme illustrates diverse views on reimbursement, ranging from viewing social egg freezing as an elective treatment not appropriate for reimbursement to preferences for greater public responsibility and wider access. Finally, we describe the participants’ varying proposals for partial reimbursement and the idea that it should not be made available for free.ConclusionsThis research adds important empirical insights to the bioethics debate on social egg freezing, in particular by presenting (potential) users’ views on the lack of reimbursement. While there is much more to say about the ethical and political complexities of the reimbursement of this procedure, our study highlighted the voices of (potential) users and showed that at least some of them would welcome the coverage of SEF through the public healthcare insurance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Oberlin's First Philosopher* EDWARD H. MADDEN ASA MAHANWAS THE FroST president of Oberlin College (1835-50) and professor of moral philosophy--the usual pattern during these years of "academic orthodoxy" when Christianity was purveyed in American colleges as the philosophy.1 The orthodox professors argued philosophical points very little but rather "presented" and "illustrated" their basic truths. 2 In some ways Mahan fit the stereotype. He did not always probe deeply into (...) questions or always offer reasons for his conclusions. His books are full of phrases like "it could not be otherwise", "no one, it is presumed, will deny that", "it is intuitively evident", "everyone cannot but know", and so on. And he frequently cited other philosophers, as well as the Scriptures, as "authorities." He even cited lengthy passages from Jonathan Edwards whenever he could, even though he differed with Edwards on almost every major point f In more important ways Mahan, however, does not fit the stereotype. Unlike Francis Wayland and most of the other academic orthodoxy before 1850, he had read, and been influenced by, German and French philosophers as well as the Scottish realists. Mahan was particularly influenced by Kant and Cousin. An astute contemporary reviewer remarked that Mahan, like Cousin, was an eclectic. "His eclecticism degenerates sometimes into the merely aggressive, and he delights occasionally in strange and incongruous combinations of Kant, Coleridge, Cousin and himself, but showing here and there great vigor and acuteness, and very considerable philosophical ability." a The aggressiveness of Mahan also sets him apart from the rest of the orthodoxy. He was too fiery by temperament to pass up polemics and hence got to the heart of some basic philosophical problems. He attacked the Edwardian doctrine of determinism and was led, by the vigor of his attack, into what many nineteenth-century Christians considered heresy3 He attacked utilitarianism in all its forms, including Paley's, in a far more consistent and thorough fashion than Francis Wayland and the other followers of Scottish realism and English intuitionism. And first and foremost he vigorously attacked the moral philosophy of his colleague Charles Grandison Finney, famous evangelist, professor of theology, and president-to-be of Oberlin. The spiritedness of his criticisms frequently aroused the ire of his Oberlin colleagues, but the spirited- *Research for some of the material in this paper was made possible by a grant from the Penrose Fund of the AmericanPhilosophicalSociety. ~Cf. Herbert W. Schneider, A History o] American Philosophy (2nd ed.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1963),pp. 195-220; and Joseph L. Blau, Men and Movements in American Philosophy (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1952). 2Cf. E. H. Madden, "Francis Wayland and the Limits of Moral Responsibility," Proceedings o] the American Philosophical Bociety, Vol. 106 (1962),pp. 348-359. *Quoted by R. S. Fletcher in his History o] Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943),II, 701. 4Fletcher, I, 223-231. [57] 58 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY hess fortunately was accompanied by a "considerable philosophical ability" that merits close attention. I Mahan's critique of Edwards appears in his Doctrine o] the Will, first published in 1844. According to Mahan, "Edwards stands convicted of a fundamental error in philosophy, an error which gives form and character to his whole workmthe confounding of the Will with the Sensibility, and thus confounding the characteristics of the phenomena of the former faculty with those of the phenomena of the latter." 5 The trouble is that the whole of Edwards' work "is constructed without an appeal to Consciousness, the only proper and authoritative tribunal of appeal in the case." 8 If we attend carefully to consciousness, said Mahan, we can distinguish volition from the strongest desire and hence must distinguish between the separate faculties of will as personal activity and sensation as mere passive impression. The latter does not "act," it merely "suffers." The will is the moving force in life and unless it can be shown that there is some necessary connection between will and sensation--which, in fact, cannot be done--then it follows that the will is free, that is, the source of "personal activity." Mahan's rejection of universal determinism, of course, entailed the rejection of the Calvinistic doctrine of election... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:538 Feminist Studies 41, no. 3. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Doreen J. Mattingly The Limited Power of Female Appointments: Abortion and Domestic Violence Policy in the Carter Administration In 1977 in the United States, Second Wave feminists were poised to make a meaningful impact on federal policy. Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 presidential campaign had included an open wooing of feminist support : he had created a “51.3 (...) Percent” committee to address women’s issues and he had told feminist audiences that he “wanted to be known as the President who achieved equal rights for women, just as President Johnson had won civil rights legislation for blacks.”1 Once elected, Carter appointed an unprecedented number of feminist women to high office, many of whom were committed to addressing the concerns of marginalized women and advancing policy on issues such as sexual violence and reproductive rights. These appointees were linked to a dense feminist organizational presence in Washington that was unprecedented in its size and diversity. Not surprisingly, many feminists had high expectations for the new administration. 1. Cynthia Harrison, “Creating a National Feminist Agenda: Coalition Building in the 1970s,” in Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States, ed. Stephanie Gilmore (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 30. See also John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation (New York: Manchester University Press, 1993); and Sara Evans, Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century’s End (New York: Free Press, 2003). Doreen J. Mattingly 539 Despite these promising conditions, feminists made little headway on policy during the Carter administration (1977–1981). Federal funding for abortion was eliminated; no permanent offices that would have advocated for women’s issues were created; and bills supporting domestic violence shelters, support for “displaced homemakers,” and quotas for female-owned businesses were defeated or extremely diluted. In addition, no additional states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and several states rescinded earlier ratification votes. Some of these failures can be attributed to the general loss of feminist momentum and the emergence of a conservative backlash in the late 1970s. Anti-ERA organizing fueled the rise of a conservative “family values” movement that would shape social policies for more than a generation, and neoliberal economic conservatives were challenging the welfare-state programs that feminists sought to expand. But in Washington, there was an addition challenge —the unreliable support of Carter himself. Despite his promises, Carter felt that by appointing women he had met his commitment to feminists and did little to support feminist policy goals that went beyond eliminating discrimination. This paper makes an important contribution to the history of feminist action by looking in detail at the efforts of Jimmy Carter’s feminist appointees to influence policy. In particular, it discusses the actions of the most visible feminist in the White House, Margaret “Midge” Costanza. Carter named Costanza director of the Office of Public Liaison, a department that was created to manage relations between the White House and citizens’ groups. Her position as the first woman to serve as Assistant to the President, in concert with her gregarious nature and strong support for women’s issues, made Costanza a very visible symbol of affirmative action for Carter. Yet Costanza, like many other high-level feminist appointees, met opposition within the White House when she tried to advance women’s issues. Her persistent advocacy contributed to her marginalization within the White House. Just twenty months into the administration she resigned in frustration.2 This paper begins with a discussion of the unique circumstances surrounding Carter’s feminist appointees, followed by a detailed exploration 2. For Costanza’s complete story, see Doreen J. Mattingly, A Feminist in the White House: Midge Costanza, the Carter Years, and America’s Culture Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 540 Doreen J. Mattingly oftwomeetingsheldbyCostanzainJuly1977.Thefirstwasanimpromptu meeting of roughly forty prochoice Carter appointees, all deeply troubled by a statement made by Carter in support of the Hyde Amendment banning federal funds for abortion. The same month, Costanza hosted a groundbreaking White House meeting about battered women, in which high-level bureaucrats heard testimonials from domestic violence victims and shelter advocates. While both meetings broke new... (shrink)

Were women agents of their own political emancipation or did politicians preemptively grant rights to them in a bid for electoral success? This article claims that both electoral politics and the ordinary strategies of women’s movements explain the timing of female suffrage. Drawing on archival evidence from the United Kingdom, I show how in an electoral environment where the incumbent Liberals saw disadvantage to reform, an enterprising group of Liberal suffragists formed a pact with the Labour party, trading economic resources (...) for the party’s promise to push for suffrage reform. The Election Fighting Fund, as the pact was called, was key to securing women’s place in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In raising the possibility that ordinary instead of revolutionary tactics proved key to voting rights reform, women emerge as an interesting new case for the study of democratization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LettersMaxwell J. Mehlman, Susan R. Massey, Ronald M. Green, and Fred RosnerPhysicians and the Allocation of Scarce ResourcesMadam: We read with interest Dr. Pellegrino's commentary on our article in the December 1994 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and commend him for pointing out so well the different ways that law and ethics approach the issue of physician allocation of scarce resources.We wish to make one clarification. (...) Dr. Pellegrino states that we propose that fiduciary duties be abolished. Quite the contrary, our position is that fiduciary obligations are essential to the maintenance of trust—which we believe to be an efficient as well as an ethical element of the patient-provider relationship. If fiduciary duties are undercut, as we pointed out they are by the Oregon Medicaid legislation, then some other method of promoting trust must be established, and, as we point out in the article, it is difficult to identify what that method could be.Maxwell J. MehlmanandSusan R. MasseyThe Law Medicine CenterArter & HaddenCase Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, OHSchool of LawCleveland, OHReport of the Human Embryo Research PanelMadam: In the December 1994 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, I reported on the controversy surrounding the work of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and the conclusions reached in its report, which was formally presented to NIH Director Harold Varmus on September 27, 1994. At that time, the report was to be reviewed by the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) until its next meeting in early December. I am writing to update your readers on the fate of the Panel's report.On the morning of December 2, 1994, following a previous afternoon of animated discussion, the ACD unanimously accepted the Report of the Human Embryo Research Panel. Panel members and members of the NIH staff who were present and had worked for nearly a year on the Report were gratified by this vote of confidence and by the strong support of NIH Director Harold Varmus.We had little time to enjoy this success. Within a matter of hours, the White House issued a press release in which President Clinton thanked the committee for its work and then, in a remark overruling one of the key recommendations in our report, stated: "I do not believe that federal funds should be used to support the creation of human embryos for research purposes, and I have directed that NIH not allocate any resources for such research." [End Page 83]As a Panel member and active participant in that day's events, my initial response was one of shock. I was particularly distressed that the President and his advisors chose a moment so late in the process to make their views known. Why had we worked for months, I asked, without a word of concern from the White House? Although Panel members were guided primarily by our perceptions of the ethical and scientific issues involved, some were close to the political realities of Washington and would have introduced these concerns into the Panel's deliberations.Within a matter of days, my own sense of outrage had diminished. First of all, it was clear that whatever the personal sources of the President's objections to the Panel's recommendations, this high level political intervention was inevitable. Less than a month before, on November 8, with the election of a majority House and Senate, the political environment for embryo research had changed dramatically. The previous June, 32 congressmen, most of them members of a minority Republican party, had signed a letter protesting the Panel's work. Now, one of the signers of that letter, Newt Gingrich, was destined to be Speaker of the House.Second, it became clear that the damage was not total. The President has forbidden NIH to support work involving the deliberate creation of embryos for research. Without exception, members of the Panel had come to the conclusion that some development of "research embryos" must be permitted to reduce the risks of new assisted reproductive technologies, to enhance scientific knowledge, and to develop new therapies for a range of serious diseases. All these... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent Acquisitions, 2020–21Bridget Whittle and Kenneth BlackwellThe previous general update of acquisitions appeared in Russell in n.s. 39 (winter 2019): 188–90. The new listing covers items numbered 1,824 to 1,839, plus an addition to 840, with the latest items arriving in December 2021. Largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this update is smaller than usual as fewer items were received or available. Several items were received from other institutions (...) and through the generosity of researchers, to whom McMaster Library is very grateful. Internet prints are from the Hon. Russell Archivist. The following abbreviations are used: L(s). or l(s). = letter(s); X. = image copies of any kind.correspondenceArlott, John L. from BR, 1951, re “Rewards of Philosophy” (C48.06) and a cricket book for Conrad. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Bell, A. S. L. from BR, 1967. Re Alys Russell’s l. to Haldane. X. Courtesy of Nicholas Bell. rec. acq. 1,827.Cambridge Daily News L. from BR requesting they issue a public statement to clarify use of his title, 1945. Re B&R C45.07a. X. Courtesy of Dr. David Harley. rec. acq. 1,824.Cousins, Norman 2 ls. from BR, re quoting History of the World in Epitome and Manchester speech, 1960. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Davies, Mansel 19 documents including ls. to BR, from Edith Russell, drafts, and notes re the Bertrand Russell Peace Fund, 1963 and later; and Dora Russell, also cnd, 1958. rec. acq. 1,828.Dewey, John 3 ls., 1 pc to William Ernest Hocking, 1936–40. Re BR at ccny and Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836.Duman, R. Douglas L. from BR, 1963. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Furtado, Celso 2 ls. from BR re Goldwater, and American war crimes in Vietnam, 1964, 1967. X. Courtesy of Camilo Furado. rec. acq. 1,829.Greene, Graham L. from BR on a Vietnam statement, 1967. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Haldane, Richard Burdon (1st Viscount) L. from Alys Russell regarding BR’s imprisonment status, 3 Mar. 1918. X. rec. acq. 1,827.Hocking, William Ernest 2 ls. from BR, 1939–40. Re Wm. James Lectures at Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836. —. See also under Dewey, John.Jones, Lief (Lord Rhayader) L. from BR congratulating him on his election victory in North Westmoreland. 1904–05. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,831.Miller, Lawrence E. L. from BR enclosing signed photo (not present), 1963. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Modern Forum (Herman Lissauer) L. from BR declining another us lecture tour, 1954. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,831.Newnham College Report from BR to extend G. E. M. Anscombe’s scholarship. He comments on her 2 dissertations. X. Courtesy of Rachel Wiseman. Original at Newnham. rec. acq. 1,831.Post, Stanley Deverin L. from BR, 1962. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Frank L. to Bill/Bull, 1902. Promises to send him a copy of his speech. X. Internet print. Courtesy of Ruth Derham. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Patricia L. to Emrys Hughes, ed. of Forward, 1945. Re the war and peace settlement. X. Courtesy of National Library of Scotland. Added to rec. acq. 840.Ryckman, Mr. L. from BR, 1923. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Schrödinger, Erwin L. from BR. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec. acq. 1,830.Silberstein, Ludwick 3ls. from BR,2in 1918, third in 1941. Silberstein had translated Problems into Polish, 1913. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Silverstein, Louis L. from BR regarding nuclear weapons and the Kennedy administration, 1961. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Spencer, Herbert L. to Lady Amberley, 1869. Re Spencer’s visit to Rodborough. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,833.Stetler, Jr., Russell Dearnley 20 ls. from BR; 30 from R. Schoenman, C. Farley, P. Wood; 1963–65. On opposing the Vietnam War. X. Donation of Russ Stetler. rec. acq. 1,838.Thirring, Hans 11 ls. from BR, 1 to BR, 1952–62. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec... (shrink)

In the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) decision, the Supreme Court rendered an opinion verifying the legality of unions and corporations to spend funds from their general treasuries to finance independent expenditures related to political and electioneering communications. Such speech and communications are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment, according to Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion (558 U.S. 22, 2010). The dissenting opinion questioned whether such rights should accrue to corporations, since corporations differ from constitutionally‐protected (...) “natural persons” (dissent, 558 U.S. 50 at 2, 2010; Johnson 2011). The decision ignited a firestorm of controversy, which renewed interest in the legal concept of corporate personhood.This article reviews key findings in the Citizens United v. FEC case, then describes the historical, legal, and theoretical concepts of corporate personhood with the goal of unbundling the nuanced consequences of the majority and dissenting opinions of the Citizens United v. FEC case. The analysis then turns to a shareholder perspective, with particular emphasis on the implications for shareholders’ rights and responsibilities. It concludes with an exploration of options available to shareholders concerned about how to respond when a corporation uses its resources to communicate political opinions at odds with their own. (shrink)

Today, the goals of pharmaceutical policy and medical practice are often undermined due to institutional corruption — that is, widespread or systemic practices, usually legal, that undermine an institution's objectives or integrity. In this symposium, 16 articles investigate the corruption of pharmaceutical policy, each taking a different look at the sources of corruption, how it occurs, and what is corrupted. We will see that the pharmaceutical industry's own purposes are often undermined. Furthermore, pharmaceutical industry funding of election campaigns and (...) lobbying skews the legislative process that sets pharmaceutical policy. Moreover, certain practices have corrupted medical research, the production of medical knowledge, the practice of medicine, drug safety, the Food and Drug Administration's oversight of the pharmaceutical market, and the trustworthiness of patient advocacy organizations. (shrink)

William Smith’s recent article criticises the so-called orthodox approaches to the normative analysis of healthcare resource allocation, associated to the requirement that decision-makers should abide by strictly procedural principles of legitimacy defining a deliberative democratic process. Much of the appeal of Smith’s argument goes down to his awareness of real-world processes and, in particular, to the large gap he identifies between well-led democratic deliberation and the messiness of the process through which the intuitively legitimate Affordable Care Act was created. This (...) reply aims to demonstrate that the ACA provides no counterexample to orthodox views, seizing this opportunity to explore the specific space that the procedural principles populating orthodox accounts are meant to regulate. Neither general questions of healthcare justice concerning, for example, universal access nor, relatedly, the activity of elected politicians falls within the natural scope of application of such principles, revealing a much more complex picture of the interactions between justice and legitimacy as well as substantive and procedural considerations than acknowledged by Smith. In the end, orthodox accounts of healthcare resource allocation turn out to provide a precious fund of theoretical resources for the normative study of administrators, which might be useful well beyond bioethics and health policy. (shrink)

The author uses two publications, Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe (Alesina and Glaeser) and Poetry magazine, to underscore the important role that educational institutions play in developing a person’s political philosophy and imagination. European nations, for instance, have better funded social welfare programs than the US because their system of public education incorporates more liberal or left-leaning teachings into their standard curricula. The author sees implications for a more intentional approach to education in the US for those who (...) are interested in changing the food system. If American educational institutions viewed their role as producing food competent citizens, he argues, then we would be more successful in addressing obesity, promoting a more sustainable food system, and even reducing poverty. Food system activists, dieticians and nutritionists, parents, and elected officials should take a more aggressive position with educational institutions to develop programs, services, and curricula capable of achieving these ends. (shrink)

Belgrade University student demonstrations, 1996-97, represent a turning point in the emergence of a democratic civic culture and civil society in the former Yugoslavia. Large-scale student demonstrations were triggered by the regimens cancellation of the November 1996 municipal election victories by the united opposition, Zajedno, in more than a dozen cities throughout Serbia, Demonstrating independently of political parties, student demands concerned not only narrow issues of university education, funding and governance, but also much larger society-wide issues concerning democratic prospects (...) for Serbia Student demonstrations helped achieve several important goals, including the reinstatement of the 1996 opposition victories, and hastened Milošević's departure. Belgrade students sought consciously to transcend Serbian nationalism, effectively challenging the regime, while distancing themselves from all political parties. Crucial in terms of overcoming the virulent nationalisms, exploited by political leaderships throughout the Balkans in the 1990s, was the students' quest for universal human rights, democracy, pluralism, tolerance, and an open society. Following Milošević's demise, the studem movement became institutionalized in Otpor as a genuine civil society public-interest group and unofficial watchdog. (shrink)

This article focuses on the deliberations of the National Institutes of Health Human Fetal Tissue Transplantation Research Panel in 1988. It explores various arguments for and against the use of fetal tissue for transplantation research, following elective abortion, and for and against the use of federal funds for such research. After examining the relevance of various positions on the moral status of the fetus and the morality of abortion, the article critically examines charges that such research, especially with federal funds, (...) would involve complicity in the moral evil of abortion, would legitimate abortion practices, and would provide incentives for abortions. Finally, it considers whether the donation model is appropriate for the transfer of human fetal tissue and whether the woman who chooses to have an abortion is the appropriate donor of the tissue. (shrink)

The Second Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at Hotel Mt. Fuji, near Lake Yamanaka, Japan, on July I to 7,1973. The present volume is the proceedings at that Con ference and constitutes the second volume in The Study of Time series. * At the closing session of our First Conference in Oberwolfach, Germany, in 1969, I was honored by being elected to the Presidency of the Society, following Dr. J. G. Whitrow, our fIrst (...) President. My mandate was to organize a Second Conference, consistent with the aim of the Society, which is the holding of interdisciplinary conferences for the presentation and discussion of papers on various as pects of time. Several participants expressed to me their wish to have a second conference held in Japan so as to emphasize the international and intercultural dedication of this Society. Dr. Fraser carefully evaluated this and many other suggestions, weighed the possible conference sites and our chances of raising the necessary funds to convene a meeting at such sites, and concurred with my conclusions that we should go ahead with the plans for a Japanese meeting. For the difficult and complicated task of raising funds and organizing a conference in Japan, I had to select and rely heavily on somebody both capable and reliable and also living in Japan. Thus, I asked the Reverend Michael Mutsuo Yanase, S. J. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medical Tourism:Crossing Borders to Access Health CareHarriet Hutson Gray (bio) and Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Traveling abroad for one's health has a long history for the upper social classes who sought spas, mineral baths, innovative therapies, and the fair climate of the Mediterranean as destinations to improve their health. The newest trend in the first decade of the twenty-first century has the middle class traveling from developed countries to those (...) with emerging economies to avoid treatment delays, prohibitive costs for life-saving procedures, or simply high costs for elective surgery. Others leave to have access to assisted suicide in countries that have legalized it: Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. This new era of globalization in health care has arrived without the benefit of international standards, government oversight, or ethical and legal review.Howard Staab, a self-employed carpenter from North Carolina, flew to India for his medically necessary heart surgery, scheduled a side trip to the Taj Mahal, and returned home to work in North Carolina. He spent a total of less than $10,000, instead of the $200,000 required from the local hospital (I, Milstein and Smith 2006).At first blush, the outsourcing of medical care to India seems to be a particular solution for a particular problem. However, the particularity of Mr. Staab is not unique. His experience is emblematic of those patients in the United States with a medical need for major and elective procedures, but who also must bear the total cost of these procedures. These middle-class, under-insured Americans go abroad.In tandem with increasingly aggressive marketing campaigns, American hospitals and companies have begun to leverage their connections in Asia to grow the medical tourism business into a major economic force. What are the consequences of this?Several authors point to the effect on the host country's population, particularly the poor, to be pushed farther down the queue to receive adequate, affordable care. Resources are applied to the foreign trade instead of building the local [End Page 193] medical infrastructure. Another potential problem is the obligation of the home-country physician to provide follow-up care. What are the legal ramifications when the procedure was illegal to begin with? Are there opportunities for redress for medical errors?These factors may be converging into a "perfect storm" for health care in the U.S., in which the potential participation of the major insurance companies in promoting offshore care will be the tipping point in the precarious structure that represents the economic currents in health care. Third-party administrators and self-funded employers may be on the cutting edge in 2009 by providing incentives to employees to travel overseas for care.I. Economic ConsiderationsConnell, John. Medical Tourism: Sea, Sun, Sand and... Surgery. Tourism Management 27: 1093–1100, 2006.As evidence of the interest of traditional tour operators in this newer twist on the industry, the author explores medical tourism as an element of the growth of world tourism. In promoting medical tourism, he urges consideration of such issues as the privatization of health care, the foundational role of technology, and uneven access to health resources.Dunn, Philip. Medical Tourism Takes Flight. H and HN: Hospitals and Health Networks: 40–44, November 2007.Writing for U.S. health care executives, Dunn emphasizes that the reality of medical tourism competes with the local medical center for patients and their insurance dollars in a significant way. He examines the possibility that U.S. insurance plans soon may offer to pay for what is currently a cash only business and that the economic impact to the local medical center could be significant or even devastating.Frontiers of Health Services Management [Selected Articles] 24 (2), Winter 2007.In "Managing Healthcare Services in the Global Marketplace" (pp. 3–18), Bruce J. Fried and Dean M. Harris consider legal, ethical, and financial implications of the international workforce. In "Globalization of Health Care" (pp. 19–30), Lynn Schroth and Ruthy Khawahja point out that the transfer of comprehensive management expertise and intellectual property from U.S. medical centers to international sites is driving the success of collaboration between U.S. and foreign health care centers. In "Is... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Fetal Tissue ResearchMary Carrington Coutts (bio)I. IntroductionThe use of tissue from fetal remains for transplantation and biomedical research has become a controversial issue in recent years, involving scientists, doctors, patients, and the federal government. Fetal tissue is potentially useful in a wide range of treatments for a number of serious diseases, some of them affecting millions of people. Despite the promise, transplantation research using fetal tissue from induced abortion (...) slowed dramatically in the U.S. in 1988, when a moratorium was declared on federal funding for such research involving humans. That moratorium was lifted by President Clinton on January 21, 1993. Though the future of fetal tissue transplantation research is brighter, public debate on the issue is likely to continue, exacerbated by the "acrimonious abortion debate" (VI, Post 1991, p. 14).Using fetal tissue in biomedical research and in transplantation is not a new practice. As early as 1928 unsuccessful attempts were made to transplant fetal pancreas cells into diabetics (VII, Fichera 1928). Fetal tissue was used effectively in biomedical research during the 1950s, and was instrumental in the culture of the polio virus, which led to the development of the polio vaccine. Fetal tissue cultures were also essential in the development of the rubella vaccine, and continue to be used in virology research. Transplantation of fetal thymus cells into patients with DiGeorge Syndrome has been recognized as effective therapy since the late 1960s.Many of the therapeutic applications involving fetal tissue are still experimental, so it is difficult to pinpoint fetal tissue transplantation's therapeutic potential. One promising application is the transplantation of human fetal brain cells into the substantia nigra of patients with Parkinson's disease to restore motor function. Fetal neural transplants have also shown promise for patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord and other neural tissue injuries, and possibly some forms of cortical blindness. Fetal liver cells may be useful for treatment of some kinds of bone marrow disease seen in leukemia and aplastic anemia patients. [End Page 81] Fetal tissue transplantation may also help those suffering from blood clotting disorders, such as sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and hemophilia. Fetal pancreatic tissue has potential applications in the treatment of diabetes, especially juvenile onset diabetes. Human gene therapy may also employ embryonic and early fetal cells.The Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota reports that more than 1,000 patients have received transplanted fetal tissue worldwide. Countries where fetal tissue transplantation has occurred include: Australia, Canada, China, the Commonwealth of Independent States (formerly the U.S.S.R.), Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Yugoslavia (IV, Vawter 1992, p. 2; I, Spain 1988; VII, Reinikainen 1989).Fetal tissue has unique characteristics that make it especially valuable in some treatments. Fetal cells develop much faster than adult cells, hastening the therapeutic effect—a potentially significant benefit for gravely ill patients. They are also less likely to be rejected by transplant recipients because they are less antigenic than adult cells. This reduces the need for the exact tissue matches that can be so difficult to obtain. Fetal tissue is also easier to culture and proliferates more readily than comparable adult tissue. Furthermore, fetal tissue is in greater supply, due to the number of elective abortions.Questions about the use of fetuses and fetal tissue in biomedical research were raised in the United States in the early 1970s. Between 1969 and 1973, all 50 states enacted the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, allowing for the donation of all or part of the body of a dead fetus for research or therapeutic research. Prospects for the use of fetal tissue increased after the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. As the availability of fetal tissue increased so did the concern over the potential for controversial research on living, soon-to-be-aborted fetuses, and anxiety over maltreatment of dead abortuses. Vivid examples include Geoffrey Chamberlain's 1968 report of an experiment on a fetus of 26 weeks gestational age. Delivered by hysterotomy from a 14-year-old patient, the fetus was attached to an "artificial placenta" and kept alive for more than... (shrink)

This article addresses debates around the fate of antiquated symbols of colonial domination in postcolonial societies. The handling of apartheid material culture still generates controversy more than 15 years after the country’s first democratic elections. Built in 1949 to commemorate the Great Trek into the interior of the country, the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria has stood as the embodiment of Afrikaner nationalism and mythology. A number of factors prevented the demolition of the site, including the spirit of national reconciliation. In (...) order to remain relevant and to secure state funding, staff members at the Voortrekker Monument have attempted to map onto the original exclusionary imagery a more inclusive narrative that hinges on the protection of ‘minority rights’ to cultural preservation. This case study sheds light on the way political transitions create openings for the interrogation of colonial monuments – whether they should be destroyed, revised or left untouched – and the development of a postcolonial memorial landscape. (shrink)

This paper focuses on how African national leaders can make global democracy relevant to sustainable development in Africa. Seeing the problem of sustainable development in Africa from the structural and functional angles, this paper begins with an introduction and a clarification of terms such as ‘democracy’, ‘globalization’ and ‘development’. It then analyzes the underlying foundations of global democracy and its implications to cultures of the African peoples. This paper tries to place the impact of global democracy on Africa in perspectives (...) by weighing the pros and cons of global democracy. Tracing the genesis of functional and developmental problems in the post-colonial Africa to structural problems occasioned by Africa’s colonial experience, this paper however strongly contends that the main problem militating against sustainable development in the post-colonial Africa is bad politics and mismanagement of national resources. African peoples need to be taught that some of the African national leaders are responsible for the bad condition of underdevelopment in the global period because of bad political governance ranging from the inability of African leaders to calculate all the relevant factors in the making of their policies as well as failing to provide effective technologies and competent staff to deal with rigging of elections and other electoral problems in addition to corruption and mismanagement of public funds. There is no way for the African nations to survive without production of goods and services in terms of farming, agriculture and diversification of their revenue base. National leaders of the various African nations cannot avoid policies that enable the industrialization of African nations through the provision of the basic infrastructures and viable amenities for social, economic, and political development. They should however be wary of debt traps of International Monetary Fund and World Bank because borrowing nations are often given difficult conditions that often make it difficult for them to obtain the desired benefits in terms of sustainable development. The study recommends that for sustainable development to take place in Africa there is need for national leaders to embrace good political governance that places the people at the centre of development to be manifested in guileless electoral process and effective management of the resources. This paper contends that the realization of sustainable development in African nations requires moral, political, and economic integration. It concludes with perspectives for further research on the issue. (shrink)

Scottish devolution and land reform were high on the political agenda with Labour's victory at the general election in 1997. In the Highlands of Scotland, where disputes over the ownership and control of land have a long history, initiatives involving the community ownership of land were gathering pace, one of which was Orbost Estate in Skye. What began as an 'experiment' in building a new community with the intention of creating a model for land reform, by 2002 had become (...) a symbol of community opposition and heavy-handed mismanagement by bureaucrats. The conflict between local objectors and the government-funded enterprise company that bought the estate, was fought on ideological, aesthetic and bureaucratic grounds. The discourse of conflict reflected opposing understandings of the social, historical and cultural environment – values that are associated with and 'naturalised' in the landscape. Rural development is increasingly subject to rigid planning guidelines based on notions of visual landscape aesthetics and imputed historical-cultural values associated with the area's tourist industry. In the absence of strong local democratic institutions, objectors and developers arrived at an uneasy compromise after several years of dispute, through the agency of the bureaucratic planning apparatus itself. This study illustrates how the multi-faceted concept of landscape mediates cultural, social and political issues, and is continually evolving in response to aesthetic, ideological and institutional agencies. (shrink)

This article discusses the introduction of the Western concept of democracy to China from the late nineteenth century to the first two decades of the twentieth century and the formation of the Chinese concept of democracy. It suggests that the modern Chinese concept of democracy underwent two formational phases. At the beginning, the traditional elite tended to interpret Western democracy in terms of republicanism. During the New Culture Movement, the new generation of intellectuals began a selective reconstruction of the notion (...) of democracy, which resulted in the modern Chinese view of democracy characterized by popular participation and elections. With funding from several research grants, we have created a database of texts related to modern Chinese political thought. By carrying out a frequency count and meaning analysis of the terms gonghe and minzhu, this article examines the roots of the replacement of the concept of republicanism by democracy from the perspective of intellectual history. (shrink)

It is often claimed both that forgiveness is elective and that forgiveness is something that we do for reasons. However, there is a tension between these two central claims about the nature of forgiveness. If forgiving is something one does for reasons, then, at least sometimes, those reasons may generate a requirement to forgive or withhold forgiveness. While not strictly inconsistent with electivity, the idea of required forgiveness strikes some as antithetical to the spirit of the concept. They argue that (...) forgiveness is essentially elective. In this paper, I dispute these arguments. I argue that the intuitive plausibility of the position diminishes upon reflection and that the best arguments fail to explain why reasons to forgive, unlike most other reasons for action, cannot generate requirements. (shrink)