THE EVOLUTION—OR END—OF MARRIAGE?: REFLECTIONS ON THE IMPASSE OVER SAME‐SEX MARRIAGE

The debate over legalizing same‐sex marriage implicates the question of whether doing so would signal the end—or destruction—of the institution of marriage. The appeal to preserving a millennia‐old tradition of marriage against change fails to reckon with the evolution that has already occurred. Invocations of gender complementarity between parents as essential to child well‐being also conflict with growing recognition in family law that children's best interests can be served by gay and lesbian parents. Canada's path toward same‐sex marriage suggests that impasse need not be inevitable. In the United States, this impasse stems in part from the problem that same‐sex marriage serves as an emblem of everything that threatens marriage.     

Unterliegt die Wirksamkeit der Änderung eines Flächennutzungsplanes der Inzidentprüfung, hat der Planbetroffene Anspruch darauf, dass nicht nur die von ihm geltend gemachten eigenen Belange, sondern auch sonstige öffentliche und private Belange gerecht abgewogen werden

Keine Zusammenfassung     

Acute myoglobinuria as a fatal complication of heroin addiction

A fatal case of myoglobinuria complicating heroin addiction is described. Clinically the patient had no overt symptoms of rhabdomyolysis. Pathologists should be alerted to this rare complication in heroin addicts who die of no apparent cause. The antimyoglobin immunoperoxidase technique is useful in confirming the diagnosis.     

Histologic findings in the lung in sudden infant death

The lungs of 79 children who had died between the ages of 1 week and 2 years old were histologically examined. 59 of these children could be categorized as cases of Sudden Infant Death because of the history and postmortem findings. In the remaining 20 cases a definite cause of death could be established. This is the same collective on which the histological investigations of the lymphatic tissue has been carried out. Morphological changes which are typical for a virus pneumonia were found in a substantially higher frequency in the cases of Sudden Infant Death than in the control cases. The validity of these findings and their possible significance for the cause of death are discussed.     

The individuality of fibres used to provide forensic evidence--not all blue polyesters are the same.

Fibres used in forensic casework suffer from a disadvantage common to other forms of trace evidence--it is not possible to state with absolute certainty that they originate from a specific source. Target fibre studies, population studies and research on 'blocks of colour' have effectively demonstrated the polymorphism of textile fibres (particularly man-made ones) and have shown that when a fibre is believed to have a specific putative source, the chance that it has originated from a different source purely by coincidence is extremely remote. A study by Houck MM (Houck MM, Inter-comparison of unrelated fibre evidence. Forensic Science International 2003; 135: 146-149) has shown that no coincidental matching fibres were recovered from items of clothing examined in 20 unrelated crimes. The study involved over two million comparisons. This work goes a step further, and using the example of blue polyester fibres shows that even within a very narrow segment of the whole general fibre population, many examples of a specific colour/type of man-made fibre taken from random sources can be compared and the chance of any two being the same is very low. These studies should help to show the specificity and value of transferred fibres in providing forensic evidence.     

Doctors in Extremity

Book Reviews in This Article:
Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.
Eric Stovcr and Elena O. Nightingak, eds., The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse and the Health Professions.
Elliot S. Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Related Treatments for Mental Illness.