Property Interests in Body Parts: Yearworth v North Bristol NHS Trust

This note analyses Yearworth v North Bristol NHS Trust , in which the Court of Appeal accepted the existence of property interests in parts or products of the human body and considered the applicability of chattel torts where interference with such interests occurs. The writer questions whether the Court's decision to extend the law of bailment in the case was necessary, or whether the law of conversion or negligence should be available as the more appropriate causes of action.     

Early adult psychological consequences for males of adolescent pregnancy and its resolution

Using data front 2522 young men who were first surveyed as 7th-grade students in Houston, Texas in 1971, we examined the psychological consequences in early adulthood of having a girlfriend become pregnant in adolescence. By age 21, 15% of the young men were involved in a nonmarital pregnancy. Rates were higher for blacks (24%) than for whites (12%) or Hispanics (16%). Among whites, most adolescent pregnancies were ended by abortion (58%). Adolescent pregnancies to blacks most often resulted in single parenthood (56%). Hispanics tended to have the child, and marry or live together (55%). Consistent with the life course perspective, young men involved in adolescent pregnancies were more psychologically distressed as young adults than those who did not have a girlfriend become pregnant in adolescence. The greater distress in adulthood is not simply a function of accelerated role transitions, because men whose girlfriends had abortions are also distressed, and those who let their girlfriends assume major parenting responsibility are no less distressed than those who became fathers and married or lived with their girlfriends. Subgroup comparisons revealed that psychological distress levels of young black men were not influenced by adolescent pregnancy.This paper was presented at the North Central Sociological Association meetings, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 1988, and reflects equal authorship. This research was supported by a grant (APR000940-02) to Dr. Robbins by the Adolescent Family Life Program, Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, Office of Population Affairs. The data were collected under a grant (R01DA02497) to Howard B. Kaplan by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Graduate student in sociology at The University of Kentucky where she recently completed a master's thesis on adolescent fatherhood.Completed doctorate in sociology at the University of Michigan in 1984. This research is part of a larger study of the psychosocial causes, resolution, and consequences of adolescent pregnancy.     

Books in review

His most recent books are The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s,and Movements, Currents, Trends.     

New directions in the political history of women: A case study of the National Woman's Party's campaign for the equal rights amendment, 1920–1927

This paper examines the National Woman's Party campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920s as an important chapter in the history of organized feminism in America. The analysis focuses on the NWP's two major objectives: to create gender equality and female autonomy and to redefine the agenda of American politics to include women's special interests. Drawing on the work of women's historians and feminist anthropologists, this paper also suggests several new perspectives for studying the political history of women. The relationship between the public and domestic spheres in general, and the relationship between women's politics and women's culture in particular, are discussed as central components for any new theoretical perspectives on women's political history.