Foetal politics and the birth of an industry

In early Western society, women were considered to have a minor role in the reproductive process. Their social status was, correspondingly, secondary. Since the eighteenth century, women's contribution to procreation has been widely accepted, yet their social status remains. Women's importance in the reproduction of the species has not guaranteed them social prestige and the argument of this paper is that women's social standing is being further assaulted by the legal and economic consequences of innovations in birth technology. Two well-publicized innovations, Artificial Insemination by Donor, and In-Vitro Fertilization (or ‘test-tube babies’) have provoked legal, political and economic considerations which focus upon the possibilities of extensive bioengineering. The significance of this for women is that birth technology is not being fashioned after the interests of its clients but, instead, is becoming a new mercantile frontier in which women's needs may well be eclipsed by commercial and political ambitions.     

Rape trauma syndrome

This article analyzes recent case law on the admissibility of rape trauma syndrome evidence. Because many rulings on the admissibility of this evidence have been based on judicial assumptions about human behavior, rather than on scientific evidence, we next describe psychological research relevant to concerns raised about its scientific reliability, helpfulness, and prejudicial impact. Following this review, we evaluate both the expert testimony provided and the judicial decisions in recent cases in light of current research. Finally, we provide suggestions for future psychological research that could 1 inform discussions of the admissiblity of rape trauma syndrome evidence.     

Recollections of a robbery

One week after committing a simulated robbery while intoxicated or sober, each of 142 subjects recalled the event within a “cognitive interview”. In an initial exploratory experiment, alcohol consumption reduced the accuracy of recall of a variety of types of information, in particular, information about persons. In the second experiment, person identification suffered following the consumption of alcohol, but only when arousal was low. Higher levels of arousal appeared instead to minimize the negative impact of alcohol upon encoding and recall. Second, whereas the recollections by subjects of what they saw during the crime were not impaired by alcohol consumption, their recollections of what they did were impaired. Both experiments examined the effects of arousal upon the subjects' recalls, and Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that increased arousal serves to reduce attention to peripheral sources of information. This hypothesis was supported because the identification of persons central to the crime benefited from increased arousal but the identification of persons peripheral to the crime did not. A similar hypothesis about the effects of alcohol received only mixed support because the subjects' behaviors reflected “alcohol myopia” but their identifications of target persons did not. Finally, manipulations at the time of retrieval of the subjects' beliefs about how much alcohol had been consumed also altered accuracy of recall. These experiments were supported by research grants from the Alberta Law Foundation to the first author and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the second author. The authors are indebted to the following people, whose assistance was invaluable: Matthew Davidson, Vanessa Farr, Corinne Kuzma, Eileen McFadzen, Laura Mensch, Debbie Robb, Todd Schultz, and Evelyn Tan. We also thank John Vokey, Brian Cutler, Beth Loftus, Garrett Berman, Marisa Caiola, and an anonymous reviewer who provided critical comments on an earlier version of this paper. This research was presented at the meetings of the American Psychology—Law Society, Williamsburg, March, 1990.