Monday, December 31, 2012

Repugnant transactions at year's end...

Each of the stories below is about a transaction still regarded as repugnant in England, Israel, and Australia, respectively, but for which things may be different in the coming year...including the final story from Russia, about an effort to make U.S. adoptions illegal (so that Russian orphans would remain so...)

Gay marriage plans are totalitarian, says Archbishop of Westminster

Record number turn out at Boxing Day hunts after Tories admit defeat on ban

Israel to Review Curbs on Women’s Prayer at Western Wall

Women who donate their eggs deserve compensation

Putin Signs Bill That Bars U.S. Adoptions

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And here are some stories about transactions that are less repugnant than they used to be...

Same sex marriage becomes legal in Maine
"Voters approved the new law in November, making Maine one of the first three states, along with Washington and Maryland, to allow same-sex marriage by popular vote. The law has already taken effect in Washington State; Maryland’s will do so on Tuesday.
"Same-sex marriage was already legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and the District of Columbia, but those laws were enacted either by lawmakers or through court rulings."

in vitro fertilization (IVF): "For a while, the press kept track of each new I.V.F. birth: one more reported before the end of 1978; four by the middle of 1980; the first in the United States at the end of 1981. In 1982, Lesley gave birth to another daughter, Natalie; she was the world’s 40th test-tube baby. And then people stopped counting. I.V.F. had moved almost imperceptibly in the public mind from unethical to frightening to just a bit unusual — and then, finally, to something so ordinary it wasn’t even noticed anymore."


4 comments:

Joseph Malkevitch said...

In this regard the following recent article may be of interest: http://ser.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/1/5.abstract.html?etoc

Greg Hill said...

Washington State and Colorado also legalized marijuana for personal use (medical pot is already legal in these states. In Washington, work is underway designing a regulatory framework out of which a market for marijuana will emerge. Good case study for someone.

Anonymous said...

what about buying guns in the US...?

Unknown said...

I guess about other fields also repugnant transactions at year's end.