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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates
Abortion is a legal, common, and safe medical procedure that one in three American women will undergo. Yet ever since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, anti-abortion forces have tried nearly every tactic to eliminate it. Legislative and judicial developments dominate the news, but a troubling and all-too-common phenomenon-targeted vigilante action against individual abortion providers-is missing from the national discussion, only cropping up when a dramatic story like the murder of an abortion provider pushes it to the forefront. Every day, men and women who are associated with abortion care are harassed, threatened, stalked, picketed, sent hate mail, and otherwise terrorized. Those who seek help from the law are sometimes successful, but not always, either because there are insufficient protections built into the law, or because law enforcement officials fail to respond. In Living in the Crosshairs, the voices of these providers are heard for the first time, through extensive interviews that David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon conducted across the country. Abortion providers are targeted at home, at work, or in community spaces; they can be harassed in person or online. Abortion opponents target not only the providers themselves but also may go after their families, neighbors, and others close to them. This kind of targeting happens anywhere in the country, not just in more conservative areas, and can victimize all providers, not just high-profile doctors. For some, being the victim of targeted harassment inspires significant fear and leads to changes in behavior; for others, it has become a normal part of life; and for yet others, it actively strengthens their resolve. The response of law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels is spotty-though there are some strong laws on the books, especially at the federal level, abortion providers have had mixed experiences when it comes to legal recourse, and effectiveness varies. Drawing on ideas from the interviews, the authors propose several legal and societal reforms that could improve the lives of providers, foremost among them redefining targeted harassment as terrorism rather than protest. Living in the Crosshairs is a rich and humane portrait of women's health professionals who persist in their work despite harassment because they believe in what they are doing. These providers' voices have not been heard in recent debates, leaving the public with a deficient understanding of exactly how abortion is limited in this country, yet their experiences illuminate the truth of the issue and offer us a path to a better policy.
Crimes against History takes a global approach to the extreme forms of censorship to which history and historians have been subjected through the ages. The book opens by considering the varieties of censorship, from suppression, dismissal, and defamation to persecution and murder. Part I, "Kill switch," tells the tragic story of how the censorship of history has sometimes turned into deadly crimes against history, with chapters looking at topics such as historians and archivists being killed for political reasons, attacks by political leaders on historians, iconoclastic breaks with the past, and fake news. Part II, "Fragile freedom," reverses the perspective and examines how the censorship of history has backfired. Chapters consider the subversive power of historical analogies and resistance to the censorship of history. The book also contains a "Provisional memorial for history producers killed for political reasons (from ancient times until 2017)". It is a double tribute: to the history producers who were killed and to those who mustered the courage to resist the blows of censorship.
This book analyses the reasons for relying on behavioural contraception methods among urban 'elites' in India and examines their efficacy in controlling fertility. It also traces variations in contraception choice over the reproductive cycle of women. Although researchers and policy makers generally equate reliance on behavioural contraceptive methods with low levels of education and awareness and lack of desire to control fertility, this perception has been questioned in recent years. The authors' analysis of the first three rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data in India reveals that behavioural contraceptive methods are popular in eastern India. Moreover, it is urban educated women who rely on behavioural methods, and are apparently able to regulate fertility quite effectively with such methods. NFHS data, however, has some limitations and this motivates the authors to explore birth control methods through primary surveys of currently married graduate women in Kolkata. The use of behavioural contraception methods is a little researched area globally and this is the first book focusing on the topic in India.
This book looks at a family of views involving the pro-life view of abortion and Christianity. These issues are important because major religious branches (for example, Catholicism and some large branches of Evangelicalism) and leading politicians assert, or are committed to, the following: (a) it is permissible to prevent some people from going to hell, (b) abortion prevents some people from going to hell, and (c) abortion is wrong. They also assert, or are committed to, the following: (d) it is permissible to use defensive violence to prevent people from killing innocents, (e) doctors who perform abortions kill innocents, and (f) it is wrong to use defensive violence against doctors who perform abortions. Stephen Kershnar argues that these and other principles are inconsistent. Along the way, he explores the ways in which theories of hell, right forfeiture, and good consequences relate to each other and the above inconsistencies.
In 1996, the Argentine government authorized the use of genetically modified (GM), herbicide-resistance soybean seeds. By the mid-2000s, GM soybeans were cultivated on more than half of the arable land in Argentina and represented one-fourth of the country's exports. While this agricultural boom has benefitted agribusiness companies and fed tax revenues, it also has a dark side: it has accelerated the deforestation of native forests, prompted the eviction of indigenous and peasant families, and spurred episodes of contamination. In Soybeans and Power, Pablo Lapegna investigates the ways in which rural populations have coped with GM soybean expansion in Argentina. Based on over a decade of ethnographic research, Lapegna reveals that many communities initially resisted, yet ultimately adapted to the new agricultural technologies forced upon them by public officials. However, rather than painting the decline of the protests in an exclusively negative light, Lapegna argues that the farmers played an active role in their own demobilization, switching to tactics of negotiation and accommodation in order to maneuver the situation to their advantage. Lapegna offers a rare, on the ground glimpse into the life cycle of a social movement, from mobilization and protest to demobilization and resigned acceptance. Through the case study of Argentina, a major player in the use and export of GM crops, Soybeans and Power gives voice to the communities most adversely affected by GM technology, as well as the strategies that they have enacted in order to survive.
Abortion Under Apartheid examines the politics of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948-1990), when termination of pregnancy was criminalized. It analyzes the flourishing clandestine abortion industry, the prosecution of medical and "backstreet" abortionists, and the passage in 1975 of the country's first statutory law on abortion. Susanne M. Klausen reveals how ideas about sexuality were fundamental to apartheid culture and shows that the authoritarian National Party government - alarmed by the spread of "permissiveness" in white society - attempted to regulate white women's reproductive sexuality in the interests of maintaining white supremacy. A major focus of the book is the battle over abortion that erupted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when doctors and feminists, inspired by international developments, called for liberalization of the colonial-era common law that criminalized abortion. The movement for legal reform spurred a variety of political, social, and religious groups to grapple with the meaning of abortion in the context of changing ideas about the traditional family and women's place within it. Abortion Under Apartheid demonstrates that all women, regardless of race, were oppressed under apartheid. Yet, although the National Party was preoccupied with denying young, unmarried white women reproductive control, black girls and women bore the brunt of the lack of access to safe abortion, suffering the effects on a shocking scale. At the heart of the story are the black and white girls and women who - regardless of hostility from partners, elders, religious institutions, nationalist movements, conservative doctors and nurses, or the government - persisted in determining their own destinies. Although a great many were harmed and even died as a result of being denied safe abortion, many more succeeded in thwarting opponents of women's right to control their capacity to bear children. This book conveys both the tragic and triumphant sides of their story.
This volume contains the proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights. Authors are international experts in their fields, and the book contains the most up-to-date information on the issue of genital cutting of infants and children from medical, legal, bioethical, and human rights perspectives.
Providing a unique critical perspective to debates on slavery, this book brings the literature on transatlantic slavery into dialogue with research on informal sector labour, child labour, migration, debt, prisoners, and sex work in the contemporary world in order to challenge popular and policy discourse on modern slavery.
Very little in the American way of life functions adequately under surveillance. Democracy itself may be at mortal risk due to the loss of privacy and the increase in surveillance. Examining challenges in a wide range of contexts, this book investigates and critically examines our systems of data management, including the ways that data are collected, exchanged, analyzed, and re-purposed. The volume calls for re-establishing personal privacy as a societal norm and priority, requiring action on the part of everyone at personal, societal, business, and governmental levels. Because new media products and services are professionally designed and implemented to be frictionless and highly rewarding, change is difficult and solutions are not easy. This volume provides insight into challenges and recommended solutions.
In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in Britain's nuclear history - the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing about the future of fuel reprocessing - he offers a powerful critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in this book are as significant and original as they were when it was written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text. A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary nuclear and related big technology debates.
Thirty-two years ago Mrs Li and Mr Wu from Zhejiang abandoned their second baby daughter at a marketplace. Mrs Wang Maochen from Beijing has seven children, but six of them are illegal so they could not go to university, could not take a job, go to the doctor, or marry, or even buy a train ticket. Zhao Min from Guangzhou first learned about the concept of a sibling at university, in her town there were no sisters or brothers. With the Chinese government now adapting to a two child policy, Secrets and Siblings outlines the scale of its tragic consequences, showing how Chinese family and society has been forever changed. In doing so it also challenges many of our misconceptions about family life in China, arguing that it is the state, rather than popular prejudice, that has hindered the adoption of girls within China. At once brutal and beautifully hopeful, Secrets and Siblings asks what the state and its children will do now that they are becoming adults.
What happens when an abortion survivor finds her birth mother, who never knew her daughter was alive? Winner, 2018 Christianity Today Book Award, CT Women Silver Medal Winner, 2018 Illumination Book Awards, Biography & Memoir Melissa Ohden is fourteen when she learns she is the survivor of a botched abortion. In this intimate memoir she details for the first time her search for her biological parents, and her own journey from anger and shame to faith and empowerment. After a decade-long search Melissa finally locates her birth father and writes to extend forgiveness, only to learn that he has died without answering her burning questions. Melissa becomes a mother herself in the very hospital where she was aborted. This experience transforms her attitude toward women who have had abortions, as does the miscarriage of her only son and the birth of a second daughter with complex health issues. But could anything prepare her for the day she finally meets her birth mother and hears her side of their story? This intensely personal story of love and redemption illumines the powerful bond between mother and child that can overcome all odds.
Prenatal and preimplantation testing technologies have offered unprecedented access to information about the genetic and congenital makeup of our prospective progeny. Future developments such as preconception testing, noninvasive prenatal testing, and more extensive preimplantation testing promise to increase that access further still. The result may be greater reproductive choice, but it also increases the burden on women and men to avail themselves of these technologies in order to avoid having a child who has a disability. The overwhelming question for legislators has been whether and, if so, how to regulate the use of these technologies in the face of compelling but seemingly contradictory claims about the advancement of reproductive choice and the dangers of eugenic or discriminatory effects. This book examines the evolution of this legislative oversight across a number of jurisdictions and explores the tensions and ambiguities that inform these laws.
Is the Death Penalty Dying? provides a careful analysis of the historical and political conditions that shaped death penalty practice on both sides of the Atlantic from the end of World War II to the twenty-first century. This book examines and assesses what the United States can learn from the European experience with capital punishment, especially the trajectory of abolition in different European nations. As a comparative sociology and history of the present, the book seeks to illuminate the way death penalty systems and their dissolution work, by means of eleven chapters written by an interdisciplinary group of authors from the United States and Europe. This work will help readers see how close the United States is to ending capital punishment and some of the cultural and institutional barriers that stand in the way of abolition.
Some of our most fundamental moral rules are violated by the practices of torture and war. If one examines the concrete forms these practices take, can the exceptions to the rules necessary to either torture or war be justified? Fighting Hurt brings together key essays by Henry Shue on the issue of torture, and relatedly, the moral challenges surrounding the initiation and conduct of war, and features a new introduction outlining the argument of the essays, putting them into context, and describing how and in what ways his position has modified over time. The first six chapters marshal arguments that have been refined over 35 years for the conclusion that torture can never be justified in any actual circumstances whatsoever. The practice of torture has nothing significant in common with the ticking bomb scenario often used in its defence, and weak U.S. statutes have loop-holes for psychological torture of the kind now favoured by CIA in the 'war against terrorism'. The other sixteen chapters maintain that for as long as wars are in fact fought, it is morally urgent to limit specific destructive practices that cannot be prohibited. Two possible exceptions to the UN Charter's prohibition on all but defensive wars, humanitarian military intervention and preventive war to eliminate WMD, are evaluated; and one possible exception to the principle of discrimination, Michael Walzer's 'supreme emergency', is sharply criticized. Two other fundamental issues about the rules for the conduct of war receive extensive controversial treatment. The first is the rules to limit the bombing of dual-use infrastructure, with a focus on alternative interpretations of the principle of proportionality that limits 'collateral damage'. The second is the moral status of the laws of war as embodied in International Humanitarian Law. It is argued that the current philosophical critique of IHL by Jeff McMahan focused on individual moral liability to attack is an intellectual dead-end and that the morally best rules are international laws that are the same for all fighters. Examining real cases, including U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, the Clinton Administration decision not to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, and CIA torture after 9/11 and its alternatives, this book is highly accessible to general readers who are interested in the ethical status of American political life, especially foreign policy.
The Censorship Effect argues that the stylistic features that prompted the criminal indictment of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal were the products of an intense struggle and negotiation with a culture of censorship. Censorship not only shaped the composition of these works but affected their reception and continues to operate in the field of literary criticism. Far from manifesting the autonomy proclaimed by modernism's defenders, both works show (and retain) signs of self-censorship. French modernism begins and remains deeply embedded in a culture of censorship whose proprieties, both literary and social, Baudelaire and Flaubert nevertheless challenged and transgressed.
This book is a comprehensive, empirically-grounded exploration of the relationship between bioethics, culture, and the perspective of being affected. It provides a new outlook on how complex "bioethical" issues become questions of everyday life. The authors focus on two contexts, genetic testing and end-of-life care, to locate and demonstrate emerging themes of responsibility, such as self-responsibility, responsibility for kin, and the responsibility of society. Within these themes, the duty to know versus the right not to know one's genetic fate (in the context of genetic testing), or the sanctity of life versus self-determination (in the context of end of life care) are identified as culturally embedded dilemmas that are very much relevant for lay persons. Furthermore, cultural factors such as religion, history, utopian and dystopian views of biomedical technologies, outlooks on the body and on health/illness, and citizenship are examined. Health issues are increasingly becoming a question of assessing risk and responsibility: How can we better prepare ourselves for the future? We all make such assessments in a way that combines personal inclinations, professional recommendations, and cultural framings. There is still much to be learned about the interplay between these three dimensions.
An interdisciplinary social history, this book examines the major pressures and influences that brought about the remarkable growth of opposition to hunting in twentieth century England. With public opinion consistently deciding from the middle of the century onward that hunting mammals for sport was cruel and unacceptable, it would appear that the controversy over hunting has all but been decided, though hunting yet remains 'at bay'. Based on a range of cultural, social, literary and political sources drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, including history, sociology, geography, psychology and anthropology, The History of Opposition to Blood Sports in Twentieth Century England accounts for the change in our relationship with animals that occurred in the course of the twentieth century, shedding light on the manner in which this resulted in the growth in opposition to hunting and other blood sports. With evidence comprising a mixture of primary and secondary historical sources, together with documentary films, opinion polls, Mass Observation records, political party archives, and the findings of sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and geographers, this book will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences and historians with an interest in human-animal relations.
A landmark literary anthology of poems, stories, and essays, Choice Words collects essential voices that renew our courage in the struggle to defend reproductive rights. Twenty years in the making, the book spans continents and centuries. This collection magnifies the voices of people reclaiming the sole authorship of their abortion experiences. These essays, poems, and prose are a testament to the profound political power of defying shame. Contributors include Ai, Amy Tan, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Bobbie Louise Hawkins. Camonghne Felix, Carol Muske-Dukes, Diane di Prima, Dorothy Parker, Gloria Naylor, Gloria Steinem, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jean Rhys, Joyce Carol Oates, Judith Arcana, Kathy Acker, Langston Hughes, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lindy West, Lucille Clifton, Mahogany L. Browne, Margaret Atwood, Molly Peacock, Ntozake Shange, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Sharon Doubiago, Sharon Olds, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Sholeh Wolpe, Ursula Le Guin, and Vi Khi Nao.
A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today. Hailed as the "first freedom," free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech's many defenders - from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Razi, to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and modern-day digital activists - Mchangama demonstrates how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all kinds. Meticulously researched, deeply humane and provocative, Free Speech challenges us all to recognise how much we have gained from this principle - and how much we stand to lose without it.
The pilot-less drones, smart bombs and other high-tech weapons on display in recent conflicts are all the outcome of weapons research. However, the kind of scientific and technological endeavour has been around for a long time, producing not only the armaments of Nazi Germany and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, but the catapults used in ancient Greece and Rome and the assault rifles used by child soldiers in Africa. In this book John Forge examines such weapons research and asks whether it is morally acceptable to undertake such an activity. He argues that it is in fact morally wrong to take part in weapons research as its primary purpose is to produce the means to harm others, and moreover he argues that all attempts to then justify participation in weapons research do not stand up to scrutiny. This book has wide appeal in fields of philosophy and related areas, as well to a more general audience who are puzzled about the rate at which new weapons are accumulated.
The 2014 Supreme Court ruling on McCullen v. Coakley striking down a Massachusetts law regulating anti-abortion activism marked the reengagement of the Supreme Court in abortion politics. A throwback to the days of clinic-front protests, the decision seemed a means to reinvigorate the old street politics of abortion. The Court's ruling also highlights the success of a decades' long effort by anti-abortion activists to transform the very politics of abortion. The New States of Abortion Politics, written by leading scholar Joshua C. Wilson, tells the story of this movement, from streets to legislative halls to courtrooms. With the end of clinic-front activism, lawyers and politicians took on the fight. Anti-abortion activists moved away from a doomed frontal assault on Roe v. Wade and adopted an incremental strategy-putting anti-abortion causes on the offensive in friendly state forums and placing reproductive rights advocates on the defense in the courts. The Supreme Court ruling on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016 makes the stakes for abortion politics higher than ever. This book elucidates how-and why.
Despite years of heated social controversy over the use of human embryos in embryonic stem cell research, the caravan of stem cell science continues to proceed at an unrelenting pace all around the world. Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research urges readers to look beyond the embryo debate to a much wider array of ethical issues in basic stem cell science and clinical translational research, including research involving adult and induced pluripotent stem cells. Insoo Hyun offers valuable insights into complex ethical issues ranging from pre-clinical animal studies to clinical trials and stem cell tourism, all presented through a unique blend of philosophy, literature, and the history of science, as well as with Dr. Hyun's extensive practical experiences in international stem cell policy formation. This thoughtful book is an indispensible resource for anyone interested in the science of stem cells and the practical and philosophical elements of research ethics.
Astonishingly, the average age of first viewing porn is now 11.5 years for boys, and with the advent of the Internet, it's no surprise that young people are consuming more porn than ever. And, as Gail Dines shows, today's porn is strikingly different from yesterday's "Playboy." As porn culture has become absorbed into pop culture, a new wave of entrepreneurs are creating porn that is even more hard-core, violent, sexist, and racist. Proving that porn desensitizes and actually limits our sexual freedom, Dines argues its omnipresence is a public health concern we can no longer ignore. |
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