The 2010 Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) treats abortion differently than any other health service, precluding public funding for abortion and imposing other restrictions on American states. To determine whether the ACA’s abortion restrictions are uniquely American or have counterparts in other national health systems, this study employs a cross-sectional design comparing abortion restrictions in the ACA with those in 17 Western European countries. Using a six-item scale, the intensity of abortion restrictions is compared across Western European nations. A similar scale is employed for a five-state sample of state-level abortion restrictions. Although the United States is not alone in having abortion restrictions, how abortion is proscribed in the ACA has no counterpart in Western Europe. Unlike many Western European countries, the ACA’s restrictions focus on abortion funding, not the length of gestation or the health of the pregnant woman.

Dr. Albert Somit recently died at 100 years of age. He was a major figure in the development of biopolitics. This essay reflects on his career and his role in helping others in advancing the study of politics and the life sciences.

In recent decades, political psychologists have given a lot of attention to the role of emotions in politics. While there have been several different research programs, the dominant paradigm has been set by affective intelligence theory (AIT), developed by George Marcus, Russell Neuman, and Michael Mackuen. AIT has helped explain many puzzles in understanding how emotions influence political decisions, as any good paradigm should. At the same time, I argue it has also had the effect of limiting broader research into the range of discrete emotions, especially contempt. While recognizing the value of AIT, I call for more research that goes beyond its boundaries, showing through several recent studies how a focus on the additional effects of contempt can improve our understanding of voter decision-making.

Cass R. Sunstein’s book The Ethics of Influence appears to have three ideological features notable for purposes of this essay. The book emphasizes choice architecture (and related notions such as nudges and defaults), which should be ethically scrutinized to guard against ethical abuses and to assist us in ethically desirable uses of scientific psychology and behavioral economics. (1) This particular book focuses more on scrutinizing nation-state government than on corporate activities. (2) This book focuses more on domestically directed governmental action than on externally directed governmental action. (3) This book focuses more on certain developed liberal democracies than on the more comprehensive global situation. Sunstein is especially interested in environmental issues, particularly energy policy, global warming, and climate change. This essay argues that Sunstein’s conceptual scheme can be fruitfully expanded to progress toward a normative environmental ethics that can be integrated with the insights of global political economy.

This article presents one method for building computer models that focus on understanding and resolving complex, or “wicked,” environmental issues. The method is designed to promote cooperative decision-making and consensus among stakeholders, scientists, and managers. The article argues that there are only two ways to resolve “wicked” environmental issues: regulation by conflict or regulation by consensus. It points out that regulation by conflict leads to coercion and further conflict. In contrast, regulation by consensus leads to acceptable and durable decisions. The article concludes that cooperation and consensus are superior to conflict and coercion. The method presented is illustrated with a successful project to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) to protect the northern spotted owl in California.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB) published its latest major report, Human Tissue: Ethical and Legal Issues on April 20, 1995. The news item in Nature described the NCoB as “widely seen as the United Kingdom's national bioethics council” (vol. 374:665). This is exactly what the trustees of the Nuffield Foundation had in mind when they established the council in July 1991.

I would like to thank all of the scholars who wrote commentaries on my essay “The Human Genome Diversity Project: Ethical Problems and Solutions.” I welcome the criticism and have learned a great deal from such thoughtful analysis and commentary. Since I am replying to comments about my paper, I am in the unique position of having the last word (at least temporarily!). Since I now have the opportunity to learn from criticism, I reserve the right to modify my position or change my views.

Since my background includes involvement in the negotiations for the BWC and for the future Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), I have some general comments concerning possible implications of the program.

In the past quarter century, the concept of culture has undergone change as evolutionary scientists have come to include social behavior in their purview. Evolutionary psychology is the newest field to concern itself with culture by claiming that most specific human behaviors are generated by minds specifically designed for these behaviors—and not from a general-purpose mind—as a result of adaptations made during the Pleistocene. Thus, mental behaviors are explained as having formed independently of cultural learning. In defending the concept, however, the leading proponents practically slough off culture as significant in human affairs. I argue that they have neglected the powerful explanatory statement of Darwin regarding at least one general-purpose adaptation of social animals, namely, the instinct for sociability, a position supported by recent neurological studies. Expanding the Darwinian concept, modern research shows that (1) the human brain was selected for sociability, which explains the origin and strength of culture, as well as its variability; (2) the development of complex culture in a pre-human primate initiated the two-and-one-half million-year evolution to modern humans; and (3) there are political contributions to cultural evolution that rest on the nature of groups (competitive and cooperative).