Montana recently joined Oregon and Washington as the only states in the nation to legalize the choice among terminally ill adults to hasten death by self-administering a lethal dose of drugs prescribed by a physician. Unlike Oregon and Washington, however, Montana's legalization of physician aid in dying (PAID) resulted not from public consideration of a statewide initiative, but from the judicial resolution of a lawsuit, Baxter v. Montana. As originally conceived, a trial judge reasoned that the unenumerated right to PAID is embraced by enumerated state constitutional rights to privacy and dignity. On appeal, Montana's supreme court jettisoned this construct, and, in its place, fashioned a legal home for PAID out of state homicide, consent defense, and end-of-life statutes. Central to this court's statutory rendering is the finding that state law, allowing terminally ill Montanans sustained by life support to withdraw such treatment and die, discriminates against terminally ill Montanans not sustained by life support who seek death; these classes are similar, the justices reckoned, entitling both to choose death. This analysis examines Montana's courting of PAID, offering textual examination of state trial and appellate court opinions, an accounting of legal strategies advanced in amici curiae briefs, and commentary about the problems and prospects with Baxter's holding. I argue, ultimately, that the equality principles statutorily conceived in Baxter (1) could be parroted in the vast majority of states that both criminalize assisted suicide and enumerate constitutional equal protection guarantees, and (2) could replace sub silentio the equal protection paradigm applied to “physician-assisted suicide” by the United States Supreme Court in its landmark Vacco v. Quill ruling.

The German army's 1943 flooding of the Pontine Marshes south of Rome, which later caused a sharp rise in malaria cases among Italian civilians, has recently been described by historian Frank Snowden as a unique instance of biological warfare and bioterrorism in the European theater of war and, consequently, as a violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical and biological warfare. We argue that archival documents fail to support this allegation, on several counts. As a matter of historical record, Hitler prohibited German biological weapons (BW) development and consistently adhered to the Geneva Protocol. Rather than biological warfare against civilians, the Wehrmacht used flooding, land mines, and the destruction of vital infrastructure to obstruct the Allied advance. To protect its own troops in the area, the German army sought to contain the increased mosquito breeding likely to be caused by the flooding. Italians returning to the Pontine Marshes after the German retreat in 1944 suffered malaria as a result of environmental destruction, which was banned by the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions and by subsequent treaties. In contrast, a state's violation of the Geneva Protocol, whether past or present, involves the use of germ weapons and, by inference, a state-level capability. Any allegation of such a serious violation demands credible evidence that meets high scientific and legal standards of proof.

This paper examines whether national differences in political culture add an explanatory dimension to the formulation of policy in the area of biotechnology, especially with respect to genetically modified food. The analysis links the formulation of protective regulatory policies governing genetically modified food to both country and region-specific differences in uncertainty tolerance levels and risk perceptions in the United States, Canada, and European Union. Based on polling data and document analysis, the findings illustrate that these differences matter. Following a mostly opportunistic risk perception within an environment of high tolerance for uncertainty, policymakers in the United States and Canada modified existing regulatory frameworks that govern genetically modified food in their respective countries. In contrast, the mostly cautious perception of new food technologies and low tolerance for uncertainty among European Union member states has contributed to the creation of elaborate and stringent regulatory policies governing genetically modified food.

This article develops a theoretical framework for biopolitical science as a science of political animals. This science moves through three levels of deep political history: the universal political history of the species, the cultural political history of the group, and the individual political history of animals in the group. To illustrate the particular application of biopolitical science, this essay shows how this science would help us to understand Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.

This study investigates whether observers react negatively to overly ambitious leaders, focusing on whether women are more sensitive than men in their perceptions of the traits of decision makers and whether men and women behave differently as a result of such perceptions. Results from two laboratory experiments show how participants react to ambitious decision makers in simple bargaining scenarios. The results indicate that observers tend to equate ambition for decision-making authority with self-interested, unfair, male behavior. Moreover, observers tend to be less satisfied with a decision made by an ambitious decision maker compared to the same decision made by an unambitious decision maker. That is, people generally dislike ambitious decision makers independent of the actual decision that is made. Further, there are important differences in male and female expectations of what decision makers will do that, when combined with perceptions of decision-maker gender, have more nuanced implications for outcome satisfaction and our understanding of “follower behavior.”

This case study of the Australian Museum's Thylacine Cloning Project analyzes a frame dispute that emerged during public communication of a scientific project, which lasted from 1999 to 2005, and was premised on the idea of resurrecting an extinct species. In choosing the Tasmanian tiger—an iconic Australian marsupial officially declared extinct in 1986—the promoters of the cloning project ensured extensive media coverage. However, the popular and scientific attention generated by the idea of bringing back an extinct species challenged the Museum's efforts to frame the project in terms of scientific progress. The project repeatedly shifted from science to spectacle, as multiple stakeholders used the mass media to negotiate the scientific feasibility of trying to reverse extinction through the application of advanced biotechnology. The case study findings are relevant both to the emerging social issues surrounding the use of paleogenomics in wildlife conservation, and to the theoretical development of frame analysis as applied to scientific controversies.

This paper argues that the processes of evolutionary selection are becoming increasingly artificial, a trend that goes against the belief in a purely natural selection process claimed by Darwin's natural selection theory. Artificial selection is mentioned by Darwin, but it was ignored by Social Darwinists, and it is all but absent in neo-Darwinian thinking. This omission results in an underestimation of probable impacts of artificial selection upon assumed evolutionary processes, and has implications for the ideological uses of Darwin's language, particularly in relation to poverty and other social inequalities. The influence of artificial selection on genotypic and phenotypic adaptations arguably represents a substantial shift in the presumed path of evolution, a shift laden with both biological and political implications.

Political humor has long been used by candidates to mobilize supporters by enhancing status or denigrating the opposition. Research concerning laughter provides insight into the building of social bonds; however, little research has focused on the nonverbal cues displayed by the individual making humorous comments. This study first investigates whether there is a relationship between facial display behavior and the presence and strength of laughter. Next, the analysis explores whether specific candidate displays during a humorous comment depend on the target of the comment. This paper analyzes the use of humor by Republican and Democratic candidates during ten 2008 presidential primary debates. Data analyzed here employs laughter as an indicator of a successful humorous comment and documents candidate display behavior in the seconds immediately preceding and during each laughter event. Findings suggest specific facial displays play an important communication role. Different types of smiles, whether felt, false, or fear-based, are related to who laughs as well as how intensely the audience is judged to laugh.

In response to former President George W. Bush's funding limitations on human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, California voters in 2004 passed Proposition 71, the most expansive state-funded medical research initiative in United States history. This study examines California's experiment in the life sciences, a particularly fitting analysis now as President Barack Obama has freed up additional federal funding for hESC research. In addition to exploring the general pitfalls of states, rather than the federal government, serving as principal players on hESC science and the perceived flaws in California's program, the analysis considers the strengths of state activism and of California's enterprise. On balance, given the Bush administration's policy on hESC research, the U.S. benefitted from state innovation. Moreover, even with the new federal regulatory policy on hESC research, California should be able to mesh its program with the federal initiative and remain a prime mover in this arena. The essay draws on informal interviews with key actors in California and on Capitol Hill in 2008 and 2009.

In his article from the previous issue of the journal, “Enhancing genetic virtue: A project for twenty-first century humanity?” Mark Walker proposes an interdisciplinary effort between philosophers, psychologists, and geneticists called the Genetic Virtue Program (GVP), whose aim is to employ biotechnology some time into the future to identify genetic correlates of “virtuous” behavior, such as truthfulness, justice, and caring.

Mark Walker's fascinating paper calls for a Genetic Virtue Program (GVP)—an interdisciplinary effort to enhance human ethics. He urges that we achieve this by “promoting genes that influence the acquisition of the virtues.” Although the GVP is a worthy focus of philosophical debate, I have to confess to some doubts about its viability. We patently don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but I'm skeptical about the notion that the way to improve the world is to make deliberate and specific ethical or moral enhancements.

Mark Walker has put forth a proposal which he calls the Genetic Virtue Program or GVP, whose kernel is that it is both possible and desirable to improve virtue by preimplantation selection or in utero engineering. Walker lists caveats to his thesis, although he consistently implies that their validity is doubtful by stating at each instance that he is including them “merely for the sake of completeness.”

We are not born virtuous or vicious. But we are born with innate temperaments and capacities that influence our acquisition of virtue by learning and judgment. As Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics, “virtues arise in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature; but by our nature we can receive them and perfect them by habituation.”