This article explores the issues surrounding the notions of secrecy and openness in donor insemination (DI). Secrecy in DI is first placed in historical context, with an outline of some of the main reasons that secrecy has been advocated. The concept of openness is then introduced, and some of the arguments for a more open approach to DI are presented. On this basis, the responses of various governments to calls for more openness are outlined, and the social policy implications of these are discussed. It is concluded that more openness in DI would be advantageous to all of those involved. Couples, professionals, and policymakers are therefore urged to reexamine their views about the need for maintaining secrecy in the area.

The literature on stress and political leadership typically views such potential stressors as time-pressure, severe consequences for bad decisions, inadequate information, and conflicting demands as negative influences on political performance. We know, however, that many politicians thrive on or even require such circumstances. Drawing on medical, historical, psychiatric, psychological, and political science literature, this essay proposes that there are at least three major types of leaders in regard to potential stressors: sturdy warriors (who cope with or who even enjoy and are helped by events commonly reacted to by others as stressors), battle-hungry warriors (who are psychologically drawn to potential stressors and “cannot function,” well or badly, without them), and frail warriors (who are unable to cope with stressors). Subcategories, including psychological and political dynamics, are provided.

Analyses of American public opinion about abortion rarely consider what light other cases might shed on the U.S. controversy. This paper argues that there are striking parallels between the politics of abortion in the U.S. and Canada. These parallels extend beyond courts and interest groups; they also apply to public opinion. Gallup data indicate aggregate similarities in how both publics view the legalization of abortion in the last fifteen years, and World Values Survey data show that Americans and Canadians hold similar views about abortion even when the controversy is lifted out of its legal context. Probit analysis demonstrates that the same variables similarly predict where these publics stand on abortion when health and discretionary aspects of the debate are taken into account. Postmaterialist value orientations may provide important clues about what future direction the abortion debate in the U.S. may take.

This study of “birth technologies” such as amniocentesis and ultrasound explores their relationship to law in a correlative area, abortion politics, in order to assess the indirect influence of politics on technology. We begin nearly twenty years ago when these technologies were emerging and trace the story to the early 1990s. Our analysis suggests that abortion politics, filtered through such activities as grant-making and basic research, influenced the development of these technologies. We therefore propose a model of policy that includes both the relatively independent march of scientific research and technical applications and the operation of constraining forces, like political interests, on science and technique. Here, law is a vehicle that itself becomes illuminated as both politics and substance.

Biographical data were collected on members of the U.S. executive, legislative, and judicial branches, in George Washington's first through Ronald Reagan's last administration, from Who Was Who in America, the Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress, Vice Presidents and Cabinet Members, and Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of America. They suggest that serial polygyny in this sample has declined over the last two hundred years. Census data on average American men suggest that the number of wives per man has stayed the same or increased at the same time. These trends imply that mating equality may have increased over the last two centuries of American history. What sketchy evidence exists on extramarital opportunities tentatively suggests a similar trend.

Employers and state officials are increasingly intervening into the lives of pregnant women for the purpose of protecting the fetus. This article examines fetal protection policies in three contexts: the workplace, the criminal arena, and the medical setting. It shows that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Johnson Controls was a narrow victory for women workers who were forced to comply with fetal protection policies in the workplace. It also points out that the Court's abortion decisions raise questions about whether the state can restrict women's job opportunities in order to protect the fetus. Finally, the article describes how state officials have intervened in women's lives to ensure fetal health and identifies some policy measures that might reduce the need for state intervention to protect the fetus.

Cooperation between politicians is often explained primarily by applying utilitarian concepts to coalition-building behavior. Usually, some direct or indirect advantage is held to be the main motive for cooperation, especially among those who are otherwise competitors. Drawing on sociobiological theory, this study presents an alternative approach in which truly altruistic motives may underlie and influence, as a biosocial substrate, even modern politics. This approach suggests that phenotypic similarities among individual politicians may play a role in the formation and stability of political alliances. To examine this hypothesis, physiognomic comparisons were made of the 65 delegates who gave speeches at the Nineteenth All-Soviet Party Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR, held in Moscow in 1988. The association between physiognomic similarity and expressions of verbal support was analyzed to test the hypothesis. Results suggest that speakers with faces more closely resembling that of the secretary-general were more likely to express verbal support for his policies than were others.

After decades of supporting fetal tissue research, in March, 1988 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) banned the use of federal funds for fetal tissue transplantation research in humans involving tissue from electively aborted fetuses. The ban was not imposed because it is unethical to transplant tissue from electively aborted fetuses; such tissue may be transplanted into animals. Nor was it imposed because it is unethical for women to donate tissue after elective abortion; women may donate such tissue for purposes other than transplantation into humans. The ban was narrowly focused on the transplantation of tissue from electively aborted fetuses into humans. It stemmed from two beliefs: (1) that it is wrong for women to abort their fetuses for the purpose of donation, and (2) that there is no way to prevent women from aborting their fetuses for the purpose of donation if the tissue may be donated for transplantation.

The Article in the August, 1992 issue of Politics and the Life Sciences by Erhard Geissler proposing the establishment of an international Vaccines for Peace (VFP) program to undertake research on and production of vaccines against pathogens (and possible toxins) that pose natural health threats is warmly welcomed. VFP is designed to contribute to health care in developing countries and to enhance international cooperation in biotechnology; it would be administered by the World Health Organization (WHO). Such a program would bring real and tangible benefits to developing countries and encourage participation by such countries in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention signed in 1972.

One of Erhard Geissler's main arguments supporting his proposed Vaccines for Peace program (VFP) refers to the intended strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). With a view to the real threat of proliferation of biological agents and the lack of verification measures in the convention, this goal is definitely praiseworthy. However, I doubt that VFP as originally outlined in the August, 1992 Politics and the Life Sciences article can achieve this. I have four concerns.