Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity.

This book couldn't be more welcome, more timely. It takes an overlooked position, that abortion is not the lesser of two evils but a positive turning point in many women's lives. In addition to absorbing countless studies, Lunneborg talked with more than 100 women who have had abortions as well as with health care workers and counselors. She found that most women do not regret their decision. Many found it to be a key reassessment point in their lives: they looked at the directions their lives were heading, their relationships, their attitudes toward their bodies, their methods of birth control, and they made significant changes. Although definitely prochoice, Lunneborg's effort balances antichoice propaganda that paints women who have abortions as irresponsible and selfish, for the women Lunneborg presents are thoughtful and articulate....Lunneborg says she wrote the book to help women through the abortion decision-making process and to give health care workers and counselors more information when working with patients. But really, it ought to be required reading for anyone embroiled in an abortion debate. " Booklist"

The first book to focus on abortion decision making, this self-help counseling resource takes a decidedly positive stance. Challenging the view that abortion is the lesser of two evils, Patricia Lunneborg maintains that it is moral, life-enhancing, supportive to families, and beneficial to the lives of millions of women. Opposing public opinion that abortion is acceptable only in special cases, she contends that the best reason to have an abortion is simply the desire not to bear an unwanted child. Bashing the concept of the so-called Postabortion Stress Syndrome, she reports positive aftereffects such as feelings of relief, a new sense of control over one's life, and increased maturity. Lunneborg, a retired professor of psychology and women's studies, bases her views on over 100 interviews with women who have had abortions and with abortion providers, as well as research findings and her own experiences. What's more, in these pages she allows women who have had abortions to share what they learned about themselves, how their dreams for education and career were positively affected, how the children they chose to have are benefiting from their decision. Perhaps most important, many of the women tell of tremendous personal growth resulting from making a considered choice to have an abortion--for some, their first major decision.

Clearly stating her perspective at the outset, Lunneborg describes those who have abortions--women of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, and walks of life--and who provides the procedure. She offers strategies for making the decision, discusses teenage situations, explains how to use the experience as an opportunity for reassessment and growth, and stresses the value of talking about abortion--both for women who have had the procedure and for other people who are often unaware of the positive effects. A complete presentation, her book also sheds light on counseling before and after an abortion, contraception, family planning, the impact on education and careers, effects on relationships with others, and the work of the dedicated group of people who provide abortions. Throughout, Lunneborg's tone is conversational, warm, easy to read. Indispensable for any woman considering the procedure, Abortion: A Positive Decision also provides invaluable help to women who seek a reaffirming view of past abortion decisions, psychotherapists and counselors, and those who provide abortion services.

A proliferation of press headlines, social science texts and "ethical" concerns about the social implications of recent developments in human genetics and biomedicine have created a sense that, at least in European and American contexts, both the way we treat the human body and our attitudes towards it have changed. This volume asks what really happens to social relations in the face of new types of transaction - such as organ donation, forensic identification and other new medical and reproductive technologies - that involve the use of corporeal material. Drawing on comparative insights into how human biological material is treated, it aims to consider how far human bodies and their components are themselves inherently "social." The case studies - ranging from animal-human transformations in Amazonia to forensic reconstruction in post-conflict Serbia and the treatment of Native American specimens in English museums - all underline that, without social relations, there are no bodies but only "human remains." The volume gives us new and striking ethnographic insights into bodies as sociality, as well as a potentially powerful analytical reconsideration of notions of embodiment. It makes a novel contribution, too, to "science and society" debates.

Should you read your teenager's diary? Would you return the extra change? What are the ethics of social media? Is buying organic food and products a more ethical choice? Tired of small talk? Often a single question can spark a meaningful, fun exchange - like, 'Would you apply for a job you know your friend is applying for?' Or 'Should voting be compulsory?' Or what about police using facial recognition technology? Questions like these spur us to consider: What have I done? Is there one correct answer? And ultimately: How can ethics help us navigate these situations to find the best outcome for ourselves and others? An ethicist who advises leaders and organisations worldwide, Susan Liautaud asks intriguing questions that encourage lively discussion across a range of subjects, from family and friends to health and technology, to politics, work and consumer choices. The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions presents some of today's most thought-provoking ethical questions in an easy-to-discuss Q&A format, walking you through how you might approach each situation to find the best answer for you.

Here is a pioneering and revealing study of the meaning of the abortion experience for American men. The book draws on over 400 detailed surveys from men involved in an abortion, along with opinion data from secondary polls of American women.

In the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of men and women were sterilized at asylums and prisons across America. Believing that criminality and mental illness were inherited, state legislatures passed laws calling for the sterilization of "habitual criminals" and the "feebleminded." But in 1936, inmates at Oklahoma's McAlester prison refused to cooperate; a man named Jack Skinner was the first to come to trial. A colorful and heroic cast of characters-from the inmates themselves to their devoted, self-taught lawyer-would fight the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only after Americans learned the extent of another large-scale eugenics project-in Nazi Germany-would the inmates triumph. Combining engrossing narrative with sharp legal analysis, Victoria F. Nourse explains the consequences of this landmark decision, still vital today-and reveals the stories of these forgotten men and women who fought for human dignity and the basic right to have a family.

Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous campswhere Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yieldsinsights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americansmaintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minorityidentified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to ministerto them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced toassess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to whatthey clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjustsocial system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact ofgovernment, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans ofdiverse ethnicities. Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply intothe religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aidedthem, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced newsocial and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionalityof government policies on race and civil rights. She also showshow the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberationtheology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.

This book offers a unique insight into the moral politics behind the making of human trafficking policy in Australia and the United States of America. As governments around the world rush to meet their international obligations to combat human trafficking, a heated debate has emerged over the rights, wrongs, and harms of prostitution, and its relationship to sex trafficking. The Politics of Sex Trafficking identifies and challenges intrinsic notions of moral harm that have pervaded trafficking discourse and resulted in a distinctly anti-prostitution agenda in trafficking policy in recent decades. Including rare interviews with key political actors, this book charts the competing perspectives of feminist, faith-based, and sex-worker activists, and their efforts to influence policy-makers. This critical account of the creation of anti-trafficking policy challenges the sex trafficking narrative dominant in US Congressional and Australian Parliamentary hearings, and demonstrates the power of a moral politics in shaping policy.This book will appeal to academics across the fields of criminology, criminal justice, law, human rights and gender studies, as well as policy-makers.

Utilising sources that range from 16th century parish registers to the 21st century supermarket loyalty card, this collection examines the history and development of identification documents and surveillance techniques over the past 500 years. Combining the knowledge of several experts from a variety of disciplines, this volume successfully demonstrates how identification and registration can enable and empower a population, particularly if the interests of the state and population coincide. It also reveals the weakness of states or corporations when dealing with issues such as popular resistance and fraud, despite great leaps forward in the scientific methods of identifying individuals. This important book offers a vital contribution to the literature on a variety of topical subject areas such as biometric identification, immigration control and personal data use, as such it is of interest to students and scholars of civil and human rights amongst other disciplines.

Modes of Censorship and Translation articulates a variety of scholarly and disciplinary perspectives and offers the reader access to the widening cultural debate on translation and censorship, including cross-national forms of cultural fertilization. It is a study of censorship and its patterns of operation across a range of disciplinary settings, from media to cultural and literary studies, engaging with often neglected genres and media such as radio, cinema and theatre. Adopting an interdisciplinary and transnational approach and bringing together contributions based on primary research which often draws on unpublished archival material, the volume analyzes the multi-faceted relationship between censorship and translation in different national contexts, including Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Nazi Germany and the GDR, focusing on the political, ideological and aesthetic implications of censorship, as well as the hermeneutic play fostered by any translational act. By offering innovative methodological interpretations and stimulating case studies, it proposes new readings of the operational modes of both censorship and translation. The essays gathered here challenge current notions of the accessibility of culture, whether in overtly ideological and politically repressive contexts, or in seemingly 'neutral' cultural scenarios.

This book provides a compelling analysis of the conditions in which women are sustained within prostitution in Britain at the end of the millennium. Based on a major empirical study, it is a unique glimpse into how some women, who live lives completely torn apart by poverty, violence and criminalization, are able to understand their lives in prostitution and make sense of the choices they make in their struggle to survive.

The recent history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, characterized by a great increase in the number of services on offer to the public, has been brought about by technological advances and economic pressures. This has inevitably affected traditional forms of content regulation. The book explores the moral basis and history of such regulation as it has until now been applied to major issues of taste and decency. These include the protection of children, obscenity and bad language, offences against religious sensibility, `reality' television, and stereotyping. Deciding What we Watch? considers the different constraints (in the law, cultural customs, and self-regulation) affecting broadcasters in the two societies and the means by which they have responded to them. The book describes, with examples, the operations of compliance regulations and standard controls. It also looks at the impact of the First Amendment on American broadcasting in this area. It looks at the arguments for the practicality of maintaining appropriate forms of restraint into the future. Deciding What we Watch? poses the question of how divided and diverse societies decide what is permissible to broadcast and how the issue might continue to evolve in the future.

This book addresses questions surrounding the feasibility of a global approach to ethical governance of science and technology. The emergence and rapid spread of nanotechnology offers a test case for how the world might act when confronted with a technology that could transform the global economy and provide solutions to issues such as pollution, while potentially creating new environmental and health risks. The author compares ethical issues identified by stakeholders in China and the EU about the rapid introduction of this potentially transformative technology - a fitting framework for an exploration of global agency. The study explores the discourse ethics and participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) inspired by the work of Jurgen Habermas to argue that different views can be universally recognized and agreed upon, perhaps within an ideal global community of communication. The book offers a developed discourse model, utilizing virtue ethics as well as the work of Taylor, Beck, Korsgaard and others on identity formation, as a way forward in the context of global ethics. The author seeks to develop new vocabularies of comparison, to discover shared aspects of identity and to achieve, hopefully, an 'intercultural personhood' that may lead to a global ethics. The book offers a useful guide for researchers on methods for advancing societal understanding of science and technology. The author addresses a broad audience, from philosophers, ethicists and scientists, to the interested general reader. For the layperson, one chapter surveys nanoissues as depicted in fiction and another offers a view of how an ordinary citizen can act as a global agent of change in ethics.

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: what does it mean to be 'human' in the 21st century? As definitions between what is "animal" and what is "human" break down, and as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and nano- and bio- technologies develop, accepted notions of humanity are rapidly evolving.
"Humanity 2.0" is an ambitious and groundbreaking book, offering a sweeping overview of key historical, philosophical and theological moments that have shaped our understandings of humanity. Tackling head on the twin taboos that have always hovered over the scientific study of humanity -- race and religion -- Steve Fuller argues thar far from disappearing, they are being reinvented.
Fuller argues that these new developments will force us to decide which features of our current way of life -- not least our bodies -- are truly needed to remain human, and concludes with a consideration of these changes for ethical and social values more broadly.

The 1960s revolutionized American contraceptive practice. Diaphragms, jellies, and condoms with high failure rates gave way to newer choices of the Pill, IUD, and sterilization. "Fit to Be Tied" provides a history of sterilization and what would prove to become, at once, socially divisive and a popular form of birth control.

During the first half of the twentieth century, sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy) was a tool of eugenics. Individuals who endorsed crude notions of biological determinism sought to control the reproductive decisions of women they considered "unfit" by nature of race or class, and used surgery to do so. Incorporating first-person narratives, court cases, and official records, Rebecca M. Kluchin examines the evolution of forced sterilization of poor women, especially women of color, in the second half of the century and contrasts it with demands for contraceptive sterilization made by white women and men. She chronicles public acceptance during an era of reproductive and sexual freedom, and the subsequent replacement of the eugenics movement with "neo-eugenic" standards that continued to influence American medical practice, family planning, public policy, and popular sentiment.

"Women, Society, the State, and Abortion" takes an unbiased look at the abortion issue, examining it from a cross-disciplinary perspective comprising history, politics, law, biology, philosophy, theology, and medicine. Through application of a structuralist method of analysis, the author looks beneath the surface to determine what the real abortion controversy is all about. This insightful volume will be of interest to public officials and administrators at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as to health, education, and social service personnel who work in and around the abortion issue.

This book explores the complex relationship between public policy and scandal. By critically examining some of the landmark scandals of the postwar period, using a variety of contemporary records and by close examination of the public inquiries which followed, this book describes the process whereby scandals are constructed and pursued, and demonstrates how scandals coincide with key shifts in public policy, in ways that are more complex and reciprocal than might first appear.

This book innovatively re-envisions the possibilities of sexuality education. Utilizing student critiques of programs it reconfigures key debates in sexuality education including: Should pleasure be part of the curriculum? Who makes the best educators? Do students prefer single or mixed gender classes?

This collection of new essays aims to address some of the most perplexing issues arising from death and dying, as well as the moral status of persons and animals. Leading scholars, including Peter Singer and Gerald Dworkin, investigate diverse topics such as animal rights, vegetarianism, lethal injection, abortion and euthanasia.

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.

"Juffer discusses how in recent years women have been more active in producing erotica for their own enjoyment and shows how this has affected the nature of erotica itself. She chronicles the rise of literary porn written by women for women, showing how books like Nancy Friday's collections of female fantasies helped pave the way . . . Juffer . . . is a sharp observer of the media."
--"Los Angeles Times Book Review"

"Illuminates the complex politics of sex in women's everyday lives. At Home with Pornography is an important contribution to a new model of cultural studies and an exciting and valuable addition to contemporary struggles over sexual politics."
--Lawrence Grossberg

Twenty-five years after the start of the feminist sex wars, pornography remains a flashpoint issue, with feminists locked in a familiar argument: Are women victims or agents? In At Home with Pornography, Jane Juffer exposes the fruitlessness of this debate and suggests that it has prevented us from realizing women's changing relationship to erotica and porn.

Over the course of these same twenty-five years, there has been a proliferation of sexually explicit materials geared toward women, made available in increasingly mainstream venues. In asking "what is the relationship of women to pornography?" Juffer maintains that we need to stop obsessing over pornography's transgressive aspects, and start focusing on the place of porn and erotica in women's everyday lives. Where, she asks, do women routinely find it, for how much, and how is it circulated and consumed within the home? How is this circulation and consumption shaped by the different marketing categories that attempt to distinguish eroticafrom porn, such as women's literary erotica and sexual self-help videos for couples?

At Home with Pornography responds to these questions by viewing women's erotica within the context of governmental regulation that attempts to counterpose a "dangerous" pornography with the sanctity of the home. Juffer explorers how women's consumption of erotica and porn for their own pleasure can be empowering, while still acting to reinforce conservative ideals. She shows how, for instance, the Victoria's Secret catalog is able to function as a kind of pornography whose circulation is facilitated both by its reliance on Victorian themes of secrecy and privacy and on its appeals to the selfish pleasures of modern career women. In her pursuit to understand what women like and how they get it, Juffer delves into adult cable channels, erotic literary anthologies, sex therapy guides, cyberporn, masturbation, and sex toys, showing the varying degrees to which these materials have been domesticated for home consumption.

Representing the next generation of scholarship on pornography, At Home with Pornography will transform our understanding of women's everyday sexuality.

This volume brings together essential writings by the unjustly neglected nineteenth-century philosopher Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904). A prominent ethicist, feminist, champion of animal welfare, and critic of Darwinism and atheism, Cobbe was well known and highly regarded in the Victorian era. This collection of her work introduces contemporary readers to Cobbe and shows how her thought developed over time, beginning in 1855 with her Essay on Intuitive Morals, in which she set out her duty-based moral theory, arguing that morality and religion are indissolubly connected. This work provided the framework within which she addressed many theoretical and practical issues in her prolific publishing career. In the 1860s and early 1870s, she gave an account of human duties to animals; articulated a duty-based form of feminism; defended a unique type of dualism in the philosophy of mind; and argued against evolutionary ethics. Cobbe put her philosophical views into practice, campaigning for women's rights and for first the regulation and later the abolition of vivisection. In turn her political experiences led her to revise her ethical theory. From the 1870s onwards she increasingly emphasized the moral role of the emotions, especially sympathy, and she theorized a gradual historical progression in sympathy. Moving into the 1880s, Cobbe combatted secularism, agnosticism, and atheism, arguing that religion is necessary not only for morality but also for meaningful life and culture. Shedding light on Cobbe's philosophical perspective and its applications, this volume demonstrates the range, systematicity and philosophical character of her work and makes her core ethical theory and its central applications and developments available for teaching and scholarship.

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.