Intersectionality as disarticulatory practice: Sex-Selective abortion and reproductive politics in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Many authors have argued that sex-selective abortion (SSA) poses a problem for defenders of reproductive choice: the notion that a woman has “freely chosen” to abort a female fetus becomes problematic when she faces compelling pressure to bear a male child. This argument reflects the broader concern of the reproductive justice movement that mainstream pro-choice discourse has defined “choice” in narrow, legalistic terms, and overlooks the barriers to reproductive choice often faced by poor women and women of color. This article examines recent debates surrounding a proposed ban on SSA in the United Kingdom. It finds that despite attempts by the ban’s proponents to make intersectional claims around gender, ethnicity, and class, their arguments also invoke xenophobia by constructing Indian migrants as a threat to “British” values of gender equality. Thus, the article suggests that the concept of disarticulation may fruitfully be used to make sense of such “intersectional” claims.     

Britain's ‘betrayal’ of Hong Kong: A second look

Claims of British bungling and betrayal were repeatedly raised during the prolonged run‐up to the 1997 Hong Kong handover. This paper seeks to evaluate such claims. It examines five controversial episodes of reputed British mishandling of the Hong Kong transition: (1) Governor Murray MacLehose's reputed double faux pas of March 1979, when the governor first putatively erred by prematurely (and unnecessarily) raising the ‘1997 question’ in a routine meeting with Deng Xiaoping and then compounded his error by misrepresenting Deng's less‐than‐reassuring response; (2) Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's 1982 miscalculation in requesting a 50‐year extension of the New Territories lease when it was already abundantly clear that Chinese leaders regarded the original lease as ‘unequal'—and therefore non‐binding; (3) Britain's 1987 decision to unilaterally postpone Hong Kong's first direct legislative elections, a decision defended on the disingenuous grounds that government surveys had revealed a majority of the Hong Kong public to be opposed to rapid democratization; (4) Britain's ostensible failure, in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen debacle, to secure the inclusion of adequate democratic safeguards in the final draft of the Hong Kong Basic Law, completed early in 1990; and (5) Governor Chris Patten's ill‐starred democratic reform initiatives of 1992–95, which sharply reversed Britain's previous ‘convergence’ policy and ultimately led to the derailing of Hong Kong's vaunted ‘through train’. Examining available evidence on these five episodes (and one or two other, related cases), this paper argues that despite occasional, palpable policy miscalculations and a notable lack of official candor, Britain did not do serious harm to the vital interests of Hong Kong. On the contrary, the paper argues, given the substantial advantage in resources and leverage enjoyed by the Chinese side throughout the transition period, a more favorable outcome could hardly have been achieved. The one residual allegation of British betrayal that cannot readily be countered, however, is the charge that racism within Britain's ruling Conservative Party—manifested in Parliamentary legislation severely restricting the flow of immigrants from British colonial territories—played a significant role in the British Government's choice of tactics in dealing with the ‘1997 question’.     

Complex Individualism and Legitimacy of Absolute Property Rights

In this article my purpose is to go thoroughly into the ideas expressed by economists regarding the legitimacy of absolute property rights. I visit the Lockian argument taken up by Murray Rothbard (1.1) and the principle of the finder keeper clarified by Israel Kizner (1.2). I argue that it is impossible to legitimate either the property of the finder keeper or the property of oneself if man does not think of himself as an individual. Indeed individualism becomes the cultural prerequisite required to acknowledge the rights of the finder keeper and the goods obtained through labour. Here, Hayek's complex individualism is akin to the hypothesis of the social animal of Benjamin Constant and the work of Gabriel Tarde on the transformation of law. The individual is both an effect and a cause of property rights.     

On universal relevance in legal reasoning

The purpose of this essay is to defend a claim that a certain consideration, which I call unworkability, is universally and necessarily relevant to legal reasoning. By that I mean that it is a consideration that must carry legal weight in the justification of some judicial decisions in every legal system in which (1) all disputed matters of law can be adjudicated, and (2) all judicial decisions are to be legally justified. Unworkability's necessary relevance has important implications for a theory of relevance presented by Rolf Sartorius. On this theory, nearly all considerations that are relevant to a judicial decision are supplied by legal principles embedded in the legal rules and decisions, or by extralegal principles dependent, in some way, on the legal principles. (The exceptions to the embedding thesis that Sartorius would, no doubt, recognize are elaborated in the text but can be set aside here.) But there are possible legal systems which do not contain an embedded legal principle concerning unworkability; and nonetheless, unworkability is relevant to judicial reasoning in those systems. Hence, a theory of relevance that relies on principles embedded in the content of rules is too simplistic. Some substantive considerations are relevant for other reasons.     

Most in Need But Least Served: Legal and Practical Barriers to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for Federally Detained Minors

Abused, neglected, and abandoned immigrant youth face numerous obstacles to physical safety, including potential repatriation (deportation) to abusive caretakers from whom they fled. In recognition of the special needs of abused children, Congress enacted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) to provide a previously unavailable child welfare defense to deportation. The remedy is contingent upon a State court declaration that the youth is, in fact, in need of protection. However, unlike their counterparts in foster care or guardianships, youth detained by the federal government face numerous practical and legal roadblocks to accessing the necessary State court declarations. This article identifies several gaps in State laws which impede detained youths' access to State court declarations, and proposes several remedies which would enable the States to carry out Congress' intent that detained youth have access to SIJS, regardless of detention status.     

Undiagnosed, untreated acute promyelocytic leukemia presenting as a suspicious sudden death

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia frequently associated with clotting abnormalities and severe hemorrhagic diathesis. The disease is associated with a high incidence of early fatal hemorrhage. We report the sudden death of a 40-year-old male without significant medical history in which foul play had been initially suspected. A thorough postmortem investigation performed on the decedent lead to the diagnosis of APL. Cause of death was a cerebellar hematoma. Underlying APL should be considered in the differential diagnosis when unexplained bleeding is encountered in a decedent. This case emphasizes the value of routinely collecting bone marrow during an autopsy to enable accurate testing and diagnosis.     

Associative Learning of Nasonia vitripennis Walker (Hymenoptera:Pteromalidae) to Methyldisulfanylmethane

Traditional methods of volatile detection used by police typically consist of reliance on canine olfaction. However, dogs have some limitations such as cost of training and time of conditioning. The possibility of using parasitic wasps for detecting explosives and narcotics has been developed. Moreover, wasps are cheap to produce and can be conditioned with impressive speed for a specific chemical detection task. We examined the ability of Nasonia vitripennis Walker to learn and respond to methyldisulfanylmethane (DMDS), a volatile discriminator of cadaver. The training aimed to form an association between an unconditioned stimulus (pupae) and the conditioned stimulus (odor source). After the training, the time spent by conditioned wasps in the DMDS chamber was measured. Statistical analysis showed that the increasing concentrations involved an increase in the time spent in the chamber containing DMDS. This study indicates that N. vitripennis can respond to DMDS, which provide further support for its development as a biological sensor.