Health Outcomes and Attitudes Toward Female Genital Cutting in a Community-Based Sample of West African Immigrant Women from High-Prevalence Countries in New York City

Female genital cutting (FGC), a deeply rooted cultural practice with high prevalence rates in many West African countries, is considered by many to represent systematic gender-based violence and human rights violation. Although short- and long-term health consequences of FGC have been examined in studies in Africa, the experiences of women who have immigrated to the Western countries such as the United States have remained largely unexplored. We sought to examine prevalence rates of FGC, as well as differences in demographic characteristics, health outcomes, and knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs among West African immigrants. This study employed audio computer-assisted self-interviewing with a community-based sample of 68 women from Gambia, Guinea, Mali, and Sierra Leone living in New York City. The rate of FGC was 68% overall and varied significantly by country, tribe or ethnicity, and marital status. Women with FGC had a significantly higher number of live births and were more likely to report a history of vaginal pain and decreased sexual arousal, but there were no other significant differences in gynecological and obstetric outcomes, sexual functioning, or psychological outcomes. Participants also had similar rates of opposition to FGC, although women with FGC were less likely to assert human rights as a reason to end the practice. Women reported a high level of surprise and unpreparedness for the FGC procedure, and 22% reported that it was done without their parents’ consent. Long-term health consequences of FGC among women who have immigrated remain unclear, although resistance to the practice is overwhelming.     

Commodifying magic: cyber shamans and neoliberalised culture in Korea

This paper explores cyber shamans in the neoliberalised Korea. As new media technologies evolved, Korean shamans leaped at an opportunity of the new media technologies in ways to redeem themselves. I used the term ‘redeem’ here because historically shamans in Korea have been demonised by the ruling power for more than 500 years and therefore even in the modern times they were perceived as ‘weird money suckers with false magic’. For this reason, the inherited dynamics of shamanism embedded in the culture were not appropriately considered. In the process of becoming cyber shamans, Korean shamans have cleverly utilised the new media and started making their presence known. Articulation of the inherited shamanic dynamic in response to the neoliberal media environment can help us to assess the various influences of the neoliberalised economic and political environment on Korean society.     

Infanticide and maternal aggression: Synchrony of male and female reproductive strategies in mice

Thirty-six percent of male mice from three strains attacked newborn pups sired by another male. No male attacked its own offspring. Females did not show differential aggression toward males likely (strangers) or unlikely (sires) to attack their pups. Both forms of aggression were unaffected by housing in rooms which did or did not contain the aggression targets. The three strains differed in strength of maternal aggression but not in the incidence of infanticide. Females showed more aggression when mated with males of the same, rather than a different, strain but no differences with intruders of the same or a different strain. Infanticide by males is best viewed as a postcopulatory, intermale-competition strategy, and maternal aggression as a counter strategy.     

Enabling Action: Reflections upon Inclusive Participatory Research on Health with Women with Disabilities in the Philippines

People with disabilities experience health disparities arising from social, environmental, and system-level factors. Evidence from a range of settings suggests women with disabilities have reduced access to health information and experience barriers to screening, prevention, and care services. This results in greater unmet health needs, particularly in relation to sexual and reproductive health. Women with disabilities are also more likely to experience physical and sexual violence than women without disabilities, further undermining their health. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) can generate knowledge and underpin action to address such health disparities and promote health equity. However, the potential and challenges of disability inclusion in CBPR, particularly in contexts of poverty and structural inequality such as those found in low- and middle-income countries, are not well documented. In this paper, we reflect on our experience of implementing and evaluating W-DARE, a three-year program of disability-inclusive CBPR aiming to increase access to sexual and reproductive health and violence-response services for women with disabilities in the Philippines. We discuss strategies for increasing disability inclusion in research and use a framework of reflexive solidarity to consider the uneven distribution of the benefits, costs, and responsibilities for action arising from the W-DARE program.     

Assisted death and martyrdom.

Against the backdrop of ancient, mediaeval and modern Catholic teaching prohibiting killing (the rule against killing), the question of assisted suicide and euthanasia is examined. In the past the Church has modified its initial repugnance for killing by developing specific guidelines for permitting killing under strict conditions. This took place with respect to capital punishment and a just war, for example. One wonders why in the least objectionable instance, when a person is already dying, suffering, and repeatedly requesting assistance in dying, there is still such widespread condemnation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a Gedankexperiment, I suggest that certain stories of martyrdom in the history of the Christian Church shed some light on the role of taking one's life, or putting one's life in danger out of love. I further suggest that requesting assisted suicide and/or euthanasia from the motive of love of one's family or care givers might possibly qualify as one instance of justifiable euthanasia, although I acknowledge that the Church will not be making changes in its stance any time soon.     

Multiplying Obstetrics: Techniques of Surveillance and Forms of Coordination

The article argues against the common notion ofdisciplinary medical traditions, i.e. Obstetrics, asmacro-structures that quite unilinearily structure thepractices associated with the discipline. It shows that the various existences of Obstetrics, their relations with practices and vice versa, the entities these obstetrical practices render present and related, and the ways they are connected to experiences, are more complex than the unilinear model suggests. What allows participants to go from one topos to another – from Obstetrics to practice, from practice to politics, from politics to experience – is not self-evidently induced by Obstetrics, but needs to be studied as a surprising range of passages that connect (or don't). Techniques and devices to supervise the delivery, to render present the fetus during pregnancy, and to monitoring birth, are described in order to show that such techniques acquire different roles in connecting and creating Obstetrics as a system andobstetrical practices.     

The need for developing standardized family pedigree nomenclature

To assess the variation in usage of symbols used in recording a genetic family history, full members of the National Society of Genetic Counselors were surveyed by questionnaire. The questionnaire return rate was 55.3% and genetic counselors from a broad range of clinical experience, genetic counseling training programs and geographic regions responded. There was striking variation in symbols used for recording routine medical information in a genetic family history (i.e., pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, termination of pregnancy). There was even less consensus in recording situations representing new reproductive technologies (i.e., artificial insemination by donor semen, donor ovum, surrogate motherhood). The results of this survey document the need for developing standardized nomenclature in recording genetic family histories as a quality assurance measure in the delivery of genetic services. Such standardization will reduce the chance of incorrect interpretation of patient and family medical and genetic information.     

动态面孔表情优势效应的心理机制及神经基础

动态面孔表情优势效应是指较静态面孔表情而言, 个体在识别动态的面孔表情时表现出较好的识别能力。动态面孔表情优势效应的心理机制主要涉及增强的构形加工、补偿角色和面孔模仿能力。此外, 该优势效应的神经网络则由核心的神经网络和扩展的神经网络组成, 前者主要负责早期的知觉编码和刺激的运动加工, 而后者与个体的面孔模仿能力、刺激的动态表征等有关。今后的研究应集中在完善延伸的神经网络、拓展其心理机制; 开展动态面孔表情优势效应的发展性研究; 考察面孔表情的刚性运动特征; 注重在虚拟现实环境下研究动态面孔表情的优势效应。     

Honoring the Bios in Lutheran Bioethics

Abstract:  A Lutheran bioethic honors the body by being anti‐Gnostic (and finding moral wisdom in the body's limits), by being anti‐Pelagian (and requiring the reshaping of our disordered desires), and by being anti‐Sadducean (in affirming that the new creation, though continuous with and fulfilling the old, also transforms and perfects it in ways that go beyond the earthly life we know). Such an approach to bioethics is illustrated here through discussion of the way in which new reproductive technologies may distort our understanding of the relation between the generations, thereby losing sight of the bios in bioethics.     

AIDS: Globalization and Its Discontents

Abstract. HIV/AIDS has changed from a disease of white gay men in the United States to a pandemic that largely involves women and dependent children in developing countries. Many theologies of disease are necessary to cope with the variety of expressions of this pandemic. Christian theoethical reflection on HIV/AIDS has been largely focused on sexual ethics, with uneven and mainly unhelpful results. Among the ethical issues that shape future useful conversations are globalized economics and resource sharing, the morality and economics of the pharmaceutical industry, and the need for sex education and access to reproductive choice. Considering such issues in international, interreligious, multiscientific contexts is a concrete next step for the religion‐and‐science dialogue. It will put the powerful tools of both fields to the service of the common good.