The Edge of Life: Human Dignity and Contemporary Bioethics treats a number of distinct moral questions and ?nds their answer in the dignity of the person, both as an agent and as a patient (in the sense of the recipient of action). Characteristically one's view of the human being ultimately shapes one's outlook on these matters. This book addresses questions that divide a culture of life from a culture of death as well as a number of questions debated within the Catholic tradition itself. The Edge of Life offers a critique of the new bio-ethic, represented by such notable authors as Peter Singer; it also attempts to shore up some of the dif?culties leveled by critics against the traditional ethic as well as to answer some questions disputed by those within the tradition. This book does not treat the basic principles of morality but rather many of their applications and suppositions. (For an account of contemporary debates within the Catholic tradition on these matters, see Kaczor 2002). Rather, The Edge of Life seeks to address a number of disputed contemporary questions touching upon human dignity at what has been called "the margins of life. " The ?rst section of the book treats the dignity of the human person as recipient of action and as agent. Chapter two examines various accounts of when a human being becomes a person.

Using previously unpublished material from the National Archives, David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne provide a new perspective on British cultural history. Statutory censorship was first introduced in Britain by Sir Robert Walpole with his Licensing Act of 1737. Previously theatre censorship was exercised under the Royal Prerogative. By giving the Lord Chamberlain statutory powers of theatre censorship, Walpole ensured that confusion over the relationship between the Royal Prerogative and statute law would prevent any serious challenge to theatre censorship in Parliament until the twentieth century.
The authors place theatre censorship legislation and its attempted reform in their wider political context. Sections outlining the political history of key periods explain why theatre censorship legislation was introduced in 1737, why attempts to reform the legislation failed in 1832, 1909, and 1949, and finally succeeded in 1968. Opposition from Edward VII helped to prevent the abolition of theatre censorship in 1909. In 1968, theatre censorship was abolished despite opposition from Elizabeth II, Lord Cobbold (her Lord Chamberlain) and Harold Wilson (her Prime Minister). There was strong support for theatre censorship on the part of commercial theatre managers who saw censorship as offering protection from vexatious prosecution. A policy of inertia and deliberate obfuscation on the part of Home Office officials helped to prevent the abolition of theatre censorship legislation until 1968. It was only when playwrights, directors, critics, audiences, and politicians (notably Roy Jenkins) applied combined pressure that theatre censorship was finally abolished.
The volumeconcludes by exploring whether new forms of covert censorship have replaced the statutory theatre censorship abolished with the 1968 Theatres Act.

South Africa’s progressive Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (No. 92 of 1996), which permits abortion at the request of a pregnant person in the first trimester, was hailed as transformative in terms of reproductive health and rights. Despite this promise, many challenges persist resulting in a lack of services, especially in rural areas where distances and transport costs are a factor.

Accessing abortion services in rural areas under conditions of liberal abortion legislation is neither straightforward nor simple. As the South African example shows, the liberalisation of abortion legislation was the first step in granting pregnant persons access to abortion care. Despite this and some progress in implementation, many challenges persist resulting in a lack of services, especially in areas where distances and transport costs are a factor.

Drawing on the findings of a study conducted in three rural districts of the Eastern Cape, the authors highlight the complexities involved in understanding problematic or unwanted pregnancies and abortion legislation within these communities; the reported barriers to, and facilitators of, access to abortion services among rural populations; and preferences for types of abortion services.

A key finding is the conundrum of costs versus confidentiality: lack of confidentiality involves additional costs to access services outside the area; high costs mean that confidentiality may have to be foregone, which leads to stigma. The authors place the findings within a reparative reproductive justice framework and present a comprehensive set of recommendations. Abortion Services and Reproductive Justice in Rural South Africa is an insightful and informative resource – the first of its kind –for scholars in health and sociology, health anthropology, health psychology, health sociology and social work, reproductive health policy makers, national planners, health facility managers and providers, and activists.

Medical care and biomedical research are rapidly becoming global. Ethical questions that once arose only in the narrow context of the physician-patient relationship in relatively prosperous societies are now being raised across societies, cultures, and continents. For example, what should be the "standard of care" for clinical trials of medical innovations in poorer countries? Are researchers obligated to compare new therapies or drugs with the best known ones available, or can they use as a benchmark the actual treatments (or lack of treatments) available to poor people? Should pharmaceutical companies seeking to lower the costs of new drug trials be allowed to enroll citizens of less developed countries in them even when those individuals cannot afford and will not be eligible for the resulting drugs? More generally, should the norms of medicine and research be the same across cultures or can they adapt to local social, economic, or religious conditions? Global Bioethics gathers some of the world's leading bioethicists to explore many of the new questions raised by the globalization of medical care and biomedical research. Among the topics covered are the impact of globalization on the norms of medical ethics, the conduct of international research, the ethics of international collaborations, challenges to medical professionalism in the international setting, and the relation of religion to global bioethics.

Experts from ethicists and political philosophers to clinicians and trade unionists seek answers to a number of key ethical questions to further a deeper understanding of the ethics of health worker migration.

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.

"

A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For the 150 years that Hong Kong was a British colony, people, money and technology flowed freely, while Hong Kong residents enjoyed freedoms that simply did not exist in mainland China. When the territory was handed over to China in 1997, the Communist Party promised that Hong Kong would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. Now, at the halfway mark, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted and activists have been jailed en masse following the decree of a sweeping national security law by Beijing. As China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower's control. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation first-hand and has unrivalled access to the full range of the city's society, from student protestors to billionaire businessmen and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.

Providing a new perspective on migration and sex work in Europe, this book is based on interviews with migrant women in the sex sector. It brings together issues of migration, labour and political subjectivity in order to refocus scholarly and policy agenda away from sex slavery and organized crime, towards agency and citizenship.

New York Times Bestseller How far are Americans willing to go to force each other to fall in line? According to the establishment media, the intelligentsia, and our political chattering class, the greatest threat to American freedom lies in right-wing authoritarianism. We've heard that some 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent the rise of American fascism; that conservatives have allowed authoritarianism to bloom in their midst, creating a grave danger for the republic. But what if the true authoritarian threat to America doesn't come from the political right, but from the supposedly anti-fascist left? There are certainly totalitarians on the political right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of leftists-college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising-have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition. The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity. The dogmatic Left is obsessed with putting people in categories and changing human nature. Everyone who opposes it must be destroyed. Ben Shapiro looks at everything from pop culture to the Frankfurt school, social media to the Founding Fathers, to explain the origins of our turn to tyranny, and why so many seem blind to it. More than a catalog of bad actors and intemperate acts, The Authoritarian Moment lays bare the intolerance and rigidity creeping into all American ideology - and prescribes the solution to ending the authoritarianism that threatens our future.

Shame, a powerful emotion, leads individuals to feel vulnerable, victimized, rejected. In Shameless, noted scholar and writer Arlene Stein explores American culture's attitudes toward shame and sexuality.

Some say that we live in a world without shame. But American culture is a curious mix of the shameless and the shamers, a seemingly endless parade of Pamela Andersons and Jerry Falwells strutting their stuff and wagging their fingers. With thoughtful analysis and wit, Shameless analyzes these clashing visions of sexual morality.

While conservatives have brought back sexual shame--by pushing for abstinence-only sex education, limitations on abortion, and prohibitions of gay/lesbian civil rights--progressives hold out for sexual liberalization and a society beyond "the closet." As these two Americas compete with one another, the future of family life, the right to privacy, and the very meaning of morality hang in the balance.

Through a rigorous critique of the dominant narrative of the Rwandan genocide, Collins provides an alternative argument to the debate situating the killings within a historically-specific context and drawing out a dynamic interplay between national and international actors.

Based on three years of extensive fieldwork, this ethnographic study of prostitution in the metropolitan city of Dalian, China, explores the lives of rural migrant women working as karaoke bar hostesses, delving into the interplay of gender politics, nationalism, and power relationships that inhere in practices of birth control, disease control, and control of women's bodies.

"Which practices count as resistance? Why, where, and how does resistance emerge? When is resistance effective, and when is it truly progressive? In addressing these questions, this book brings together novel theoretical and empirical perspectives from a diverse range of disciplinary and geographical locales"--Provided by publisher.

Abortion in the Weimar Republic is a compelling subject since it provoked public debates and campaigns of an intensity rarely matched elsewhere. It proved so explosive because populationist, ecclesiastical and political concerns were heightened by cultural anxieties of a modernity in crisis. Based on an exceptionally rich source material (e.g., criminal court cases, doctors' case books, personal diaries, feature films, plays and literary works), this study explores different attitudes and experiences of those women who sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and those who helped or hindered them. It analyzes the dichotomy between medical theory and practice, and questions common assumptions, i.e. that abortion was "a necessary evil," which needed strict regulation and medical control; or that all back-street abortions were dangerous and bad. Above all, the book reveals women's own voices, frequently contradictory and ambiguous: having internalized medical ideas they often also adhered to older notions of reproduction which opposed scientific approaches.

Cosmopolitan Animals asks what new possibilities and permutations of cosmopolitanism can emerge by taking seriously our sharing and 'becoming-with' animals. It calls for a fresh awareness that animals are important players in cosmopolitics, and that worldliness is far from being a human monopoly.

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.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This timely Research Agenda provides in-depth analysis of emerging threats posed to academic integrity, alongside practical, evidence-based recommendations for creating cultures of integrity, demonstrating their importance within the commercialised field of higher education. Analysing the latest research on contract cheating, and how to identify and respond to it, this book explores the potential role of cyber-security research as arguably the next academic integrity frontier. Internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines and countries examine challenges surrounding academic integrity, offering advice to all higher education stakeholders. Chapters discuss the role of quality assurance, moving through specific cultural contexts and academic disciplines to provide insights into how to identify serious academic integrity breaches. This Research Agenda also looks at how to foster cultures of integrity, calling for further research on plagiarism, cheating and all forms of academic misconduct. The opportunities for future research in the book will make this a useful read for scholars examining higher education policy and practice. It will also be helpful to higher education teachers and professionals, policy-makers, and staff working directly with students, as the sector deals with growing concerns about breaches of academic integrity. Contributors include: P. Ayala-Enriquez, T. Bretag, J. Clare, G. Curtis, P. Dawson, D. Dlabolova, R. Dressler, S. Eaton, C. Ellis, T. Foltynek, N. Franco-Perez, T.B. Gallant, I. Glendinning, J. Guerrero-Dib, R. Harper, D. House, E. Morris, G. Pizarro-Puccio, F. Prentice, A. Rogerson, K. Rundle, K. Seaton, K. van Haeringen, A. White

Ethical responsibility has intellectual and practical implications for social researchers. This book explores a range of issues, theories and questions, enabling readers to reflect upon, understand and critique these with confidence. With helpful examples and a glossary of terms, it is essential reading for new and experienced researchers alike.

A unique and important book. I have never read any work which analyzes the subject in such a manner. This book is more thorough and has a more liberated point of view than others which attempt to tackle this hot potato' of the 1980s. Men should read this book. Women should read this book.

"Karen DeCrow, former President, NOW"

This study slices like a laser through all the fog of rhetoric, disinformation, bias, and fear that has long enveloped all discussions of the subject of pornography in the US. No argument in favor of the censorship of such material can be considered valid unless the basic arguments of this study are answered. . . . This is a valuable resource for all academic libraries and could well become a fundamental weapon in the war to preserve the First Amendment. This book should be purchased by all but the smallest libraries; it may well be the most honest discussion of the subject ever written. "Choice"

In the continuing debate over pornography, two arguments stand out: that it is evil and should be censored, or that it is evil but censorship is a greater evil. F. M. Christensen presents the other side of this debate in what will surely be one of the most controversial books on the subject. Pornography: "The Other Side" convincingly argues that anti-pornography campaigns are themselves morally evil. The author defends this startling claim with a scientific persuasiveness. He successfully opens the pornography debate to include the whole picture, allowing the reader to grasp another side to this ongoing debate with concise, practical arguments. Students and scholars of all the social sciences, as well as the informed general reader, will find Pornography: The Other Side a source of stimulating ideas.

Christensen concludes that pornography itself is not the fundamental issue for those who oppose it. Vehement opposition to pornography, according to this book, is a symptom of tragically mistaken beliefs about sex. What this book is really about, writes the author, is sex--and the evil effects on the lives of all of us which irrational attitudes toward that subject continue to have.

Demonstrating the contested and differentiated nature of childhood and youth embodiment, this book responds to political and media discourses that stigmatise 'unruly' youthful bodies, by combining the critical analysis of imagined and disciplined youthful bodies with a focus on young people's lived and performed, embodied subjectivities.

This book provides an international, multi-disciplinary empirical account of pole classes and how they fit into wider discourses about bodies and gender, and age and fitness. In particular, the book explores how women initiate agency and espouse liberation and empowerment through something as seemingly problematic as pole classes.

Why do some countries have 'Culture Wars' over morality issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage while other countries hardly experience any conflict? This book argues that morality issues only generate major conflicts in political systems with a significant conflict between religious and secular parties.

Many debates about the moral status of things-for example, debates about the natural rights of human fetuses or nonhuman animals-eventually migrate towards a discussion of the capacities of the things in question-for example, their capacities to feel pain, think, or love. Yet the move towards capacities is often controversial: if a human's capacities are the basis of its moral status, how could a human having lesser capacities than you and I have the same "serious" moral status as you and I? This book answers this question by arguing that if something is human, it has a set of typical human capacities; that if something has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status; and thus all human beings have the same sort of serious moral status as you and I. Beginning from what our common intuitions tell us about situations involving "temporary incapacitation"-where a human organism has, then loses, then regains a certain capacity-this book argues for substantive conclusions regarding human fetuses and embryos, humans in a permanent vegetative state, humans suffering from brain diseases, and humans born with genetic disorders. Since these conclusions must have some impact on our ongoing moral and political debates about the proper treatment of such humans, this book will be useful to professionals and students in philosophy, bioethics, law, medicine, and public policy.

When, God willing, the abortion controversy is behind us, partisans of the pro-life and pro-choice positions are going to have to live together in this society. That is why, sloganeering and passionate polemics are inevitable, civil conversation is essential. And that is why "The Silent Subject" is such a gift to all of us at this point in the controversy. (From the foreword by Richard John Neuhaus) The essays in this work constitute a sensitive, public argument for a reconstruction of the confused--yet dominant--popular attitudes toward nascent human life and its value. Unlike most pro-life arguments, it offers no strictly religious or exclusively sectarian warrants for its assertions - instead bearing a more secular cast, speaking to a generalized and pluralistic audience. As a whole, "The Silent Subject" embraces no specific, particular political ideology. Its contributors have a broad spectrum of professional interests, political perspectives and social philosophies - all of which indicates the fundamentally humanistic and apolitical nature of concern for the unborn and the degree to which they are esteemed. This unusual book is a refreshingly candid and morally compelling analysis of the social forces that superintend our cultural outlook toward unborn human life.