Pediatric Ethics and the Surgical Assignment of Sex Essay -- Medical G

Pediatric Ethics and the Surgical Assignment of Sex One in every 2,000 babies born every year are neither male nor female, they are what is known as hermaphrodites. These children and their families are forced into a life of hardship and encounter many conflicts, which need to be addressed. Should the parents choose the assignment of the sex to a newborn child and subject them to a life of surgery and doctor visits? There are 100 to 200 pediatric surgical reassignments every year. Many of these children are subjected to doctor visits for the rest of their childhood. Worst of all, many of these children find themselves resembling or identifying with the gender opposite of that which their parents chose for them. Conditions That Qualify for Gender Reassignment: Over the past five decades, surgical interventions have been recommended as standard procedure for infants who are born with either ambiguous genitalia or who suffer from traumatic genital injury. Surgical advances in this century have made it possible for physicians to choose a gender for the child and then sculpt the appropriate genitalia. Some of the conditions that demand gender reassignment for children can be a result of chromosomal or hormonal defects. Typically males have XY chromosomes, and women have XX chromosomes; however, hermaphrodites are neither male nor female. One reason comes from Turner's Disease where the chromosomes are XO, and there is a sex chromosome missing. Another mutation is the XXY chromosomes, known as Klinefelter's Disease, which occurs in an average of one out of every 1000 births. There is also, Mosaicism, where different cells split into different parts, making up XY and XO chromosomes. Hormonal complications can change the gender... ... who believe the same. Surgery may never even be needed. Conclusion: To protect the lives of intersexed children, it is in their best interest if the parents wait until after the child reaches puberty before going through with the surgery. Surgery should only be done if the child suffers from further health risks. References 1) J. Money and A. Ehrhardt, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1972) 2) P.K. Donahoe, and J.J. Schnitzer, "Evaluation of the infant who has ambiguous genitalia, and principles of operative management," Seminars in Pediatric Surgery 5 (1996) 3) http://www.ukia.co.uk/diamond/ped_eth.htm 4) http://mind.phil.vt.edu/sex/emma.html 5) http://www.afn.org/~sfcommed/pedethics.htm 6) http://www.isna.org/library/recommendations.html 7) http://bmei.org/jbem/volume4/num2/scipione.htm

What would happen if the World Runs out of Oil and Gas :: essays research papers

Oil is hydrocarbons that grew up in the earth when source rock full of organic inclusions sank to just the right depth not too little and not too much and got cooked over the ages. It took hundreds of millions of years for the world's supply of oil to be created. The oil is used to make gasoline obviously, but also home heating oil, diesel fuel but also 90 percent of all the organic chemicals that we use. That includes pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, plastics, fabrics and so on. They are petrochemicals, meaning they originate as oil. the need for those hydrocarbon materials has been increasing for 150 years and will go on increasing especially because the world's population is increasing. The poorer parts of the world want to increase their standard of living, which inevitably means using more energy. Fossil fuels are our principal source of energy. I hope that enough people will become aware of the problem and we will be a little better prepared, Right now we don't have the kind of leadership that would take us in the direction that would make major changes. As individuals we can do things, driving hybrid cars, for example. But as a society we have to redesign cities so that people live close to where they work. There are all kinds of measures. We are so profligate in the use of energy that even with the smallest effort we can reduce the rate at which we use energy very significantly, as Californians showed after the last energy crisis. But what we really need is massive infusion of research on all of the possible ways of ameliorating this problem. It's possible for us to revert either to natural gas or to coal or both. Among consequences are the increasing global climate change. But another consequence is, let us suppose you tried to substitute coal for oil. Natural gas is a good substitute and it will last for a while but it will have its own peak one or two decades after oil, so it's only a temporary solution. If you turn to coal, we're now using twice as much energy from oil as we are from coal. So if you want to liquefy coal as a substitute for oil in transportation which is its most important application you would have to mine coal at a rate that's many, many times at the rate of what we're doing now.

Moral hazards in financial system

Loans and the Housing Bubble Burst A moral hazard in economics is where someone takes a risk that they wouldn't normally take because they know that the consequences of that risk not paying off will be paid by somebody else. The case we will be discussing will be the housing bubble burst and it relates to the topic because lenders took great risks lending money to people that could not afford it knowing their banks were too big to fail and he government would have to bail them out.To begin this case we must first give a brief summary. After the dot. Com bubble burst of 2000 and the attacks on the US on September 11 the US economy was at a great risk of going into a recession. Central banks around the world including our federal reserve tried to stimulate the economy by reducing interest rates. This made a lot of people see the opportunity to make money and they started taking on riskier investments like for example buying houses that they knew they couldn't afford hoping to flip it i n a couple of years and make a great deal of money.Lenders saw this as an opportunity to make money as well by lending all this money but they did It with high risk approving people with supreme credit that would normally never get approved for these loans. Consumers kept this trend going and every year more and more supreme mortgages were being Initiated until 2006 when the housing bubble anally burst.The result was more foreclosures per year than had ever been seen before in the US and many lenders and hedge funds having to declare bankruptcy or need government ball outs. Moral hazards in financial system By caricaturing this as an opportunity to make money as well by lending all this money but they did it more supreme mortgages were being initiated until 2006 when the housing bubble need government bail outs.

Arendt-Theory of Totalitarianism Essay

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as one of the most important, unique and influential thinkers of political philosophy in the Twentieth century. Arendt was greatly influenced by her mentor and one time lover, Martin Heidegger, whose phenomenological method would help to greatly shape and frame Arendt’s own thinking. Like Heidegger, Arendt was sceptical of the metaphysical tradition which tended towards abstract conceptual reasoning; ultimately at odds with the reality of human lived experience. Consequently, Arendt was highly dubious of being referred to as a philosopher, as she felt philosophy was, by its own essence, confined to the proverbial ivory tower. She believed political life was at the apex of human experience and so she identified as a political thinker/actor. Her emphasis on the phenomenological nature of the lived political experience permeates her life’s works and perhaps can be said to constitute her own distinct brand of political philosophy. Arendt’s early publication, Ideology & Terror: A Novel Form of Government, is a profound elucidation of the nature of the theretofore unprecedented (she argues) phenomenon of Totalitarianism and its â€Å"origins†¦ elements†¦ and functioning†¦ † A Novel Form of Government: Arendt posited that the totalitarian forms of â€Å"government and domination† (Arendt. 03) which characterised the Nationalist Socialist party in Germany and Stalin’s oppressive regime in Soviet Russia, which saw systematic genocide and terror visited upon literally millions of innocent people, were unprecedented in the history of political systems, and were not mere modern manifestations of ancient forms of violent government such as despotism or tyranny. She went further even, to suggest that totalitarian systems had destroyed the very foundations upon which traditional ideas and presuppositions of government rested. Although totalitarianism seemed to contain elements of tyrannical or despotic forms of government i. e. terror, violence, absolute power etc Arendt contended that totalitarian regimes differed in important ways which rendered them qualitatively distinct. Tyranny and dictatorships, she argues are marked by â€Å"Arbitrary power, unrestricted by law, yielded in the interest of the ruler and hostile to the interests of the governed, on one hand, fear as the principle of action, namely fear of the people by the ruler and fear of the ruler by the eople†¦ †(Arendt. 306) Terror, according to Arendt, has traditionally been used as a means to an end, or tool for tyrannical regimes, namely the end of maintaining and sustaining a position of power over its subjects. Totalitarian systems however, do not function in this way, ideologically at least, According to Arendt. â€Å"total terror leaves no arbitrary lawlessness behind it and does not rage for the sake of some arbitrary will or for the sake of despotic power of one man against all. † (Arendt. 311) Context and Content: In order to understand the nature (if there is one) of Totalitarianism forms of government, it is important first to understand both their historical contexts and the Ideologies which underpin them, as Totalitarian regimes, are by their nature ideological, as Arendt shows. Take for example National Socialism, the political ideology which took root in Germany during the 1930’s, characterised by militant nationalism and overtly inherent racism. The context in which the Nazi party rose to prominence was the extreme devastation, debt and resulting poverty and hunger left in Germany in the wake of the First World War. It can indeed be argued that Adolph Hitler’s demagoguery and flair for rousing public sympathy with his intense speeches, was also crucial to the widespread proliferation, acceptance and support for Nazi ideology, at a time when people yearned for a clear solution to their plight and poverty. Hitler’s bellicose rhetoric displayed a typical trait of ideologies; a final solution, the idea that the answer to all of life’s problems can be understood and solved by following a particular stringent course of action determined by a single unambiguous worldview. Ideologies-isms, which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurrence by deducing it from a single premise† (Arendt. 315) Nazi Ideology had at its core, a politically and indeed racially motivated perversion of the Darwinian concept of a natural hierarchy of species, in which the stronger/more successful species would inevitably replace the weaker ones. Darwin’s profound insight into the ways in which organisms evolve was warped and misrepresented by the Nazis, who filtered it through their racist and nationalist worldview, justifying the extermination of Jews and other supposed degenerate races by claiming they were following and indeed implementing a Law of Nature. In Darwin, Arendt explains, the Nazi party had found what they saw as an unbending Natural Law, the very source from which positive (manmade) laws had been traditionally derived. far from being â€Å"lawless,† it goes to the sources of authority from which positive laws received their ultimate legitimation† (Arendt. 307) Arendt argues that this Law of Nature was taken to be a suprahuman edict which was used justify their campaign of terror and genocide, and furthermore usurp any positive laws which were counter-productive to their cause. Nature itself mandated the extermination of lesser â€Å"degenerate† races according to Nazi ideology. And so the carrying out and indeed hastening of the process of this â€Å"Natural† decree was the end which the Totalitarian regimes sough to effect. In fact, Totalitarian ideology sought for the actual societal embodiment of these supposed Laws of history and nature, and asserted that by the strict implantation and of these laws, a utopia on Earth would be realised. â€Å"the Law of Nature or the law of History, if properly executed, is expected to produce mankind as its end product† (Arendt. 307) Arendt is highly critical of this thinking which she describes as particular to Totalitarian government. One of the most obvious critiques which she makes is the complete disregard in this line of thinking for basic anthropological concerns i. e. ow humans actually tend to behave and function. â€Å"It applies the law directly to mankind without bothering with the behaviour of men†¦ Totalitarian policy claims to transform the human species into an active unfailing carrier of a law to which human beings otherwise would only passively and reluctantly be subjected† (Arendt. 307) Terror as the essence of Totalitarian rule: Built into the notion of executing the Laws of nature and history is an inherent eschewing of the legitimacy, importance and even relevance of manmade or positive laws, which are intended to govern and ease the functioning of societies in which people participate. The denial of positive laws and their replacement with the bringing into effect, a Law of Nature or indeed a Law of History as per Totalitarian ideology, is, Arendt argues largely what separates Totalitarian regimes from despotism and tyranny. Because they drew their justification from the very source of all positive laws i. e. Natural law, Totalitarian regimes were able to substantiate this denial of the legitimacy of positive laws by claiming that in aiming to produce the perfect rule of Natural Law on earth, that mankind itself would become the very â€Å"embodiment of the law† (Arendt. 08) By claiming to actualise and bring into effect fundamental laws which determine the inevitable course of history by establishing the perfect rule of Natural law on earth through use of terror, Totalitarian regimes subvert at the same time traditional notions of government and also notions of the utility of terror. Terror was no longer merely an arbitrary tool of oppression, (although it was of course the methodology with which the terrible ideology of Totalitarianism was realised) Terror was itself the embodied form which submission to the supposed Law of Nature took, or as Arendt puts it â€Å"Terror as the execution of a law of movement†¦ Arendt. 311)† Terror was in fact now the end goal itself; as such Terror is indeed Totalitarianism’s essence. Arendt uses a good analogy to illustrate this point. â€Å"the absence of crimes in any society does not render laws superfluous but, on the contrary, signifies their most perfect rule-so terror in totalitarian government has ceased to be a mere means for the suppression of opposition, though it is also used for such purposes. Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition; it rules supreme when nobody any longer stands in its way. If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lawlessness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence totalitarian domination† Dangerous Ideology: What made Nazism and Stalinism so dangerous, according to Arendt, were not merely the ideas which characterised their respective ideologies i. e. racism and dialectical materialism, but the logic which one could arguably follow from these types of thinking. If Ideologies are the logic of ideas, (which they are! ) then it is the seemingly logical implications of these ideas, which made them dangerous. To put it simply, if one concludes that there are suprahuman forces which determine the very course of history, as espoused by Nazism and Stalinism, then one must be bound to follow the logical steps which lead from this idea. â€Å"Whoever agreed that there are such things as â€Å"dying classes† and did not draw the consequence of killing their members, or that the right to live had something to do with race and did not draw the consequence of killing â€Å"unfit races,† was plainly either stupid or a coward†. (Arendt. 318) The dangers of commitment to the logic of ideas bviously are determined by the extremity of the ideas themselves, however as Arendt rightly points out, it is this ice cold reasoning which both Hitler and Stalin were very fond of which gave their ideologies a trajectory of power and an pseudo-scientific guise which legitimated them. Rather than a principle of action aimed at some common good or societal benefit such as the prevention of crime, this â€Å"logicality of ideological thinking† (Arendt. 321) is what makes Totalitarian government tick. Isolation, The Phenomenology of Terror: As we have seen, terror is the essence of Totalitarianism. But it is important to realise exactly what this means for the experiencing subject of Totalitarian rule. Terror, Arendt explains, destroys the ability to engage in any public life. Isolation is the most salient feature of terror. Terror wrought isolation has been used throughout the centuries by tyrannical rulers to inhibit political agency and thus destroy the possibility of revoltâ€Å"†¦ terror can rule absolutely only over men who are isolated against each other and that, therefore, one of the primary concerns of all tyrannical government is to bring isolation about†¦ Isolation and impotence, that is the fundamental inability to act at all, have always been characteristic of tyrannies. † (Arendt. 321-322) The final way in which Totalitarian governments differ from those regimes of tyranny, which have also employed terror as a tactic, is for Arendt, the destruction by terror of the private sphere of human life. Total terror, as it were, is not content with merely destroying the public life of people and their ability to interact. Total terror permeates the mind and destroys the faculties of creativity and mental autonomy. Totalitarianism seeks to destroy the entire ability for people to create something new and bring it into the world. While it obviously needs to destroy the ability of political life, it also enforces utter personal isolation (loneliness) on the mind of the individual, so that he or she has no outlet vent and indeed no ability to form ideas of their own. â€Å"In isolation, man remains in contact with the world as the human artifice; only when the most elementary forms of human creativity, which is the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world, are destroyed, isolation becomes altogether unbearable†¦ Totalitarian government, like all tyrannies, certainly could not exist without destroying the public realm of life, that is, without destroying, by isolating men, their political capacities but totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it is not content with this isolation and destroys private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man. † (Arendt. 24) The phenomenological and anthropological implications of this total terror are for Arendt the complete breakdown of the human actor. She argues that humans are essentially social beings who need social interaction to function and live as we are hardwired to do so; our complete sense of who we are and what our world means ultimately derives from our experience of interacting with others. â€Å"For the confirmation of my identity I depend entirely upon other people† (Arendt. 324) In conclusion I think it may be prudent to summarise the central elucidations which Arendt makes in Ideology and Terror. . Totalitarian governments were unprecedented governmental forms before the early 20th century. 2. Totalitarian governments are ideological in nature and functioning, and derive their justifications from suprahuman â€Å"Laws of Nature and History† and implement the logic of these ideas through use of terror. 3. Terror is the primary tool and also the essence of Totalitarian governments, i. e. Total terror becomes the actual embodied form of the Laws of History and nature made manifest 4.  Totalitarian governments destroy the ability to act politically as all tyrannies do, but also they destroy the realm of private life as well, rendering human existence a miserable one in attempting to make each person the actual embodiment of Natural and Historical Laws Arendt’s masterful work has shed light on one of the darkest periods in human history and it al so lends insight into the nature of government, society and the human subject more broadly speaking. She remains a seminal figure in the discipline of political philosophy and continues to inspire thought and debate to this day.

What is Corporate Taxation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

What is Corporate Taxation - Assignment Example To fund Napoleonic Wars, William Pitt The Younger incorporated the simple process of taxation in Britain in the budget of 1798. And hence the tradition carries on. History of Corporate Tax: In the Finance Act of 1965, the process of uniform taxation for individuals and corporates was abolished and separate Corporate Taxation was started. It is currently governed by the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988, which has also undergone amendment. Advance Corporation Tax (ACT) and its abolition: The advance Corporation Act introduced in 1976 came as a blow to corporates as dividends paid by the corporates were highly and disproportionately taxed. 0n 6 the April 1999, it was abolished by Mr. Gordon Brown, the then vice chancellor of the Exchequer, who is none other than the Prime Minister of Great Britain today. Reduction of Rates by Gordon Brown In 1999: In the budget of 1999 Gordon Brown introduced a more efficient and proportionate taxing system or rate according to the volume of profits, as in opposition to an age-old system of 1965. A budget of 2002: It scrapped the tax on companies earning profits up to 10000 pounds and that witnessed a huge growth in the number of self-employed and small-scale industries. It is still perceived to be a major step in the UK's Corporate Taxation history. (Darmon, 2008) Adoption of Ethical and more scientific Appraisal standards: IFRSs or International Financial Reporting Standards was adopted by European Union in 2005 and hence as well as the UK to promote transparency in taxation system and hence benefited the corporates in general. (Nardi, 2005)Â   Finance Act of 2004: The first of its kind, it promoted the use of legal anti Tax Avoidance Schemes among Corporates. (Public Sector Information, 2004) Finance Act of 2005: For the need of higher revenues, Oil, Gas & Life Insurance companies were targeted in this budget and laws were implemented forcing them to pay lump sum tax installments and that cost these companies heavily. (Public Sector Information, 2005)

Native and European Women in the early colonial era Essay

Native and European Women in the early colonial era - Essay Example Women worked in groups especially in the farms, farms tending to the crops such as corn. Group work seemed to make work lighter for the women and many groups came from extended families. Women work was appreciated greatly as they did most of the household chores and mad sure that the family as well fed. Men were not offering much assistance and leisured around hunting animals, fishing, and building homes Women used to tend farmlands although it was a hard task during the pre-colonial times especially farming tobacco. Some of the families with enough resources could hire slaves to help in the farms. The slave women performed most of the household chores and in the farms. Women in England had a lot of authority over their women and at some time there were laws by the law-makers defined the roles for women. They came up with two distinct roles of women, the good wife free and white performed domestic chores around the house (Ulrich, 1991). The other one was the agricultural laborer mostly the blacks and slaves. White women later acquired a clear place to inherit land and another policy allowed widows and daughters to occupy the land. The native women most of them slaves serving as cooks, hairdressers, housekeepers, washerwomen, and tailors. The slaves worked in the farms as labourers and never got time for themselves. These women were to serve their masters and carry out all the housew ork without pay. Men were more than women, which created some imbalance; women became more valuable and appreciated in marriage. Women got more rights such as the right to keep any property that she brought in marriage as asserted by Ulrich (1991). A woman was supposed to be a loving wife, a mother, and a true housekeeper. Later women started owning lands and venturing in other areas such as businesses, managers of inns, and taverns. Men appreciated their women and allowed their

United States Foreign Policy toward Cuba Research Paper

United States Foreign Policy toward Cuba - Research Paper Example Cuba opted to maintain its political and economic relations with the Soviet’s legal successor. Since then, U.S. had been indifferent to Cuba and decided to put restrictions on their relationship as â€Å"nations.† In fact, a law was adopted by the United States Congress to prevent international companies â€Å"from dealing with any kind of Cuban assets† (Byers and Nolte 127). The U.S. had also obtained from the United Nations Security Council â€Å"a binding international embargo against Cuba† (Byers and Nolte 127). As such, U.S. companies were prohibited to trade with the Caribbean country (Leler). Also, licensed travel was sharply restricted—travel agencies were required to have government authorization first and foremost (Schwab 75). The objective of such constraints was to economically isolate Cuba â€Å"while depriving it of U.S. dollars† (Schwab 75). For almost a decade, these restrictions were viable and effective until a new form of l eadership had taken into place. The Obama administration had considered modifying its foreign policies to bridge the gap between the Americans and Cubans. Foreign policies in the international setting are interest-specific. It is always the interest of the general public that has a great bearing in every decision making. The goal of protecting and projecting the national interest remains the same (Ahmed, qt. in â€Å"One Day Lecture†). Nevertheless, the dynamism of international affairs makes it difficult for global leaders to be focusing on the same policy every now and then. As stated by Ahmed, the periodic re-adjustment of foreign policies is an inevitable event (qt. in â€Å"One Day Lecture†). Generally, foreign policy is the fact that a nation wears in the outside world. â€Å"It is the sum total of the values† which direct the behavior of a country in the international sphere (Ahmed, qt. in â€Å"One Day Lecture†).