Passport to Parenthood: Reproductive Pathways In and Out of Denmark

Denmark has become a destination for single women, lesbians, and heterosexual couples wanting donated sperm. At the moment, women from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, and the UK travel to Denmark. Simultaneously, waiting lists for donated eggs and age restrictions are prime motivations for infertile Danish women and heterosexual couples to leave Denmark and travel to Spain, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and Greece for egg donation. Informed by Donna Haraway’s notion of “the apparatus of bodily production”, Marcia Inhorn’s development of “reproductive flows”, and the use of Adele Clarke’s “situational analysis”, this paper explores the question: How do global reproductive pathways in and out of Denmark emerge when fertility travellers narrate, negotiate, and cross national borders to go through fertility treatment? Methodologically, we use a multi-sited and multi-modal approach centring on interviews with fertility travellers moving to and from Denmark in combination with ethnographic observations carried out in Danish and Spanish fertility clinics and an analysis of legal regulations. The paper concludes by discussing how the concept of reproductive pathways helps to theorize transnational movements of bodies and contributes to feminist scholarship on transnational reproductive travel.     

Estimating property tax base elasticity over time: Evidence on the revenue maximizing politician

The Laffer curve analysis suggests a possible policy conflict between short-run revenue maximization and long-run fiscal health. This paper estimates short-run and long-run property tax base elasticity in order to test whether such a conflict exists for the property tax in central cities. A stock adjustment model is used and separate time-series estimates for four New York State central cities lend empirical support to such a conflict. The results show that while disincentive effects associated with property tax rate increases are not strong enough to reduce proeprty tax revenue in the short-run, they are substantial enough to reduce long-run revenue in all but one city. The paper also tests for asymmetric response to property tax rate changes and finds significant results for only one city.     

Traumatic dissection of the vertebral artery in a toddler following a short fall

Spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) in children is uncommon, but is sometimes seen after rupture of aneurysms, and in different disorders. Traumatic SAH is common after serious accidental head injury, but is also reported after child abuse with vigorous shaking. To avoid unnecessary accusations of innocent care givers, it is important not to misinterpret the findings as abusive head trauma in small children with SAH. In the presented case, a nearly two-year-old girl was brought to the hospital after a fall witnessed by her father. The girl was unconscious, with elevated intracranial pressure, SAH and bilateral retinal haemorrhage (RH). She was pronounced dead after 9h. Premortem angiography revealed a dissection of the right vertebral artery, and postmortem examination revealed a traumatic lesion deep in the neck, at the base of the skull. Cerebral edema, in combination with SAH and RH, is highly suggestive of abusive head trauma. However, no external lesions, no skeletal lesions, especially no long bone metaphyseal lesions, or subdural haematomas occurring at the same time as SAH, were found. There was no report of previous child abuse in the family. Based on the radiological and postmortem findings, we believe that an accidental fall caused a blunt force trauma with a subsequent dissection of the right vertebral artery. To our knowledge, accidental tear of one of the vertebral arteries, leading to SAH in a toddler, has previously not been described. Child abuse is an important exclusion diagnosis with serious legal implications.     

SPERM ON ICE

Freezing technologies and extraction techniques make posthumous reproduction possible. This article discusses the bioethical and legal debates that surround the possession and use of dead men's sperm as they unfold in three select cases in Denmark and Australia. In the analysis we use feminist perspectives on reproduction to argue that the debates frame posthumous reproduction in light of four discursive configurations: The ‘child’, the ‘father’, the ‘widow’, and the ‘necrophile’. Whereas the performance of responsibility and maturity is key in the production of the ‘good’ widow in the Australian legal cases, the monstrous figure of the necrophile takes on a more prominent place in the Danish bioethical material. The legal and bioethical debates jointly, however, resurrect the nuclear, patriarchal family, while they also tend to re-naturalise heterosexed, romantic reproductive desire.     

Risk factors and consequences of unwanted sex among university students: hooking up, alcohol, and stress response

This is the first study of unwanted sexual experiences in the collegiate "hooking-up" culture. In a representative sample of 178 students at a small liberal arts university. Twenty-three percent of women and 7% of men surveyed reported one or more experiences of unwanted sexual intercourse. Seventy-eight percent of unwanted vaginal, anal, and oral incidents took place while--"hooking up,"--whereas 78% of unwanted fondling incidents occurred at parties or bars. The most frequently endorsed reason for unwanted sexual intercourse was impaired judgment due to alcohol. The most frequently endorsed reason for unwanted fondling was that it happened before the perpetrator could be stopped. Of those affected by unwanted sexual intercourse or unwanted fondling, 46.7% and 19.2% reported unwanted memories, 50% and 32.7% reported avoidance and numbing responses, and 30% and 26.9% reported hyperarousal responses, respectively. A preliminary model of unwanted sex and collegiate social dynamics is proposed to provide a heuristic for further research.     

The political feasibility of potent enforcement in a post-Kyoto climate agreement

To be effective, a post-Kyoto climate agreement must secure significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions by all (key) emitters. Potent participation and compliance enforcement will be required to make it in every key emitter’s best interest to participate in, and comply with, an agreement which specifies deep emissions reductions for all its signatories. This article considers the conditions under which potent enforcement would likely be politically feasible. Based on assessments of the current political landscape, and on the sets of constraints that characterize negotiations over enforcement systems, the article firstly finds that neither type of enforcement would be politically feasible if agreement is sought among all key emitters. Secondly, because participation enforcement is perceived as less legitimate than compliance enforcement, the coalition of countries prepared to accept the former is likely smaller than the coalition prepared to accept the latter. Thirdly, participation enforcement likely places stricter requirements on the coalition’s membership and size. Thus, while compliance enforcement should in principle always be politically feasible among some coalition, reaching agreement on participation enforcement is less likely. To the extent that participation enforcement is politically feasible, however, an agreement which enforces the cooperation of all key emitters may be attainable.     

Revisiting DDR in Liberia: exploring the power,agency and interests of local and international actors in the ‘making’ and ‘unmaking’ of combatants

The understanding that disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes are essential in helping to prevent war recurrence in post-conflict situations is at the heart of current international aid practice and the academic literature on peacekeeping and stabilisation. However DDR programmes are often launched on the basis of untested assumptions. This article considers the DDR programme in Liberia and analyses the complex relationship between the programmatic efforts to disarm and reintegrate combatants and the programme's actual effects. If we are to understand how DDR works as a tool of post-conflict governance, it is essential to explore the mechanisms of authority and power at stake. The focus is therefore not on whether combatants were successfully disarmed and reintegrated, but rather on exploring unfolding processes and the field of forces within which DDR programmes are implemented. It critically assesses the ideas of disarmament and reintegration and the basic assumptions behind current DDR policy through an analysis of the Liberian case, emphasising the agency and interests of local and international actors in the ‘making’ and ‘unmaking’ of combatants.     

Validation of the AmpF?STR SEfiler Plus™ PCR Amplification kit for forensic STR analysis

Validation of the AmpF?STR^® SEfiler Plus™ PCR Amplification kit with 29 and 30 PCR cycles for forensic STR analysis demonstrated that the kit had fewer artefacts than the AmpF?STR^® SGM Plus™ kit (28 PCR cycles). The SEfiler Plus kit was more sensitive and devoid of colour artefacts, but showed more stutters, drop-ins, drop-outs and allelic imbalances.