The Underground “How did you manage to get released?” Tom said. “It wasn’t easy,” Beverley said. “Son-of-a-bitch Wong wanted info about the latest underground.” “Did you tell him?” “No!” “Must have been a battle of wills between you.” “It was. I thought they had you cornered. How did you escape?” “Through a back alley.” Beverley shivered. The only comfort against the biting cold came from the cigarette they were sharing, that and the heat generated by the other bodies. She took another drag. “This is good shit, where did you get it?” Tom shrugged and took the cigarette. “Bought it on the black market.” Cigarettes had been taxed heavily back in the 2020 budget when the government wanted money for health services. Ten years later, many companies declared bankruptcy. In another five years the anti-smoking lobby convinced the government …show more content…
Or, we could put you through the program.” The Program—it was the last thing she wanted—pumped full of drugs containing a cocktail of Nicontrolic, Nicofin, and Nicotitrelief. “You have nothing on me. You have to let me go.” Wong accessed a tablet. Here was a man who would actually like going to the dentist, someone who liked the feel of the drill, the rattling, whirring, buzzing. Wong scrolled down the tablet. “Why are you giving me a hard time? I can take good care of you.” “I doubt that.” “Says here you applied for a child permit twice, but you didn’t pass the means test.” Wong had to be accessing the government’s central database. He would also know Tom had been a sperm donor before he was sterilized. His sperm was held in a central bank, monitored and doled out for use in artificial placenta and vitro fertilization, a process regulating childbirth. Beverley sniggered. Means test: it was an oxymoron for a process to determine fitness for parenthood. The Department of Conception developed a dossier on applicants based on factors ranging from ability to provide for the child to a psychological
“Listen,” the grandmother almost screamed, “I know you are a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have blood. I know you must come from nice people.” It all happened so fast. The car had rolled and wrecked.
That thing in the Dumpster--and he refused to call it human, let alone a baby--was nobody's business but his and China's. That's what he'd told his attorney, Mrs. Teagues, and his mother and her boyfriend,and he'd told them over and over again: I didn't do anything wrong. Even if it was alive, and it was, he knew in his heart that it was, even before the state prosecutor represented evidence of blunt-force trauma and death by asphyxiation and exposure, it didn't matter, or shouldn't have mattered. There was no baby. There was nothing but a mistake, a mistake clothed in blood and mucus. When he really thought about it, thought it through on its merits and dissected all his mother's pathetic arguments about where he'd be today if she'd felt as he did when she was pregnant herself, he hardened like a rock, like sand turning to stone under all the pressure the planet can bring to bear. Another unwanted child in an overpopulated world? They should have given him a medal. (623)
Every human being in this controlled society is created on an assembly line in test tubes much like a factory. The first test tube baby in our world was born in Great Britain on the 25th of July 1978. They retrieved one of the mother eggs and placed into a test tub wear it was fertilized with a father’s sperm. The scientist then waited for the cell to divide in to 64 cells, then placed the fertilized egg in the mother’s uterus were it was successfully embedded, and then the baby was born about 9 months later. There are many more humans that have been conceived in this way. This is part of the ...
Lucas, 823 So. 2d 316 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002), rev. den., D.A.L. v. L.A.L., 835 So. 2d 266 (Fla. 2002), the sperm donor had entered a written agreement before the use of artificial insemination.6 This contract specified that the donor would not have parental rights or obligations if the mother became pregnant through the procedure.6 Even though after the mother gave birth to twins, the biological father filed a paternity claim by arguing that both parties constituted a “commissioning couple”.6 The court rejected this argument, because they did not contract to raise the children together as an intended couple and the F.S. § 742.148 was used to prevent the paternity request. The decision in Lamaritata case was distinguished from “Janssen vs Alicea” case. In the Lamaritata case, there was a prior written agreement defining that the biological father was a just a sperm donor and there were no elements that would establish a relationship between the two parties as a couple.6 Moreover, despite the biological parents of the child had agreed to specific visitation, Florida courts do not enforce a contract for visitation in favor of a
The Underground Man is spiteful. He tells us this and we really ought to believe him. The Underground Man is not only bothered by the class system of Russia but he is also plagued by everyone that he happens to glance at. Namely, I think that he is tormented by the fact that he is not free. He will never be free. He is a prisoner of himself.
The advancement and continued developments of third-party assisted reproductive medical practices has allowed many prospective parents, regardless of their marital status, age, or sexual orientation, to have a new opportunity for genetically or biologically connected children. With these developments come a number of rather complex ethical issues and ongoing discussions regarding assisted reproduction within our society today. These issues include the use of reproductive drugs, gestational services such as surrogacy as well as the rights of those seeking these drugs and services and the responsibilities of the professionals who offer and practice these services.
...cy “we” give “birth mother” and agencies being exposed because of what we might find in adoptees records is just a way to keep stuff away from the people who rightfully deserve the right to know. (The Baltimore Sun ).
A pack of cigarettes can cost anywhere from $6 to $10/pack in the U.S. Even if a person smoked a half of a pack per day, that would be $3/day. This would be a weekly expense of $21 and $84 for the month. That figures out to $1,008 in a year. That’s a decent amount of wasted or burned up money. For the last few years, our government has been trying to get healthcare insurance available for every American. Most healthcare insurances give a discount to nonsmokers or they include a “tobacco surcharge”. This tobacco surcharge is part of the new Obamacare. Smokers can face an increase of their premiums up to 50%. The health insurance that is offered at my workplace has a required health screening annually if you want to possibly receive the tobacco free discount. A blood test is done to check for nicotine or cotinine is in the blood. If the results are positive for these additives, the employee would not receive the discounted insurance rate. That unnecessary expense of $1,008 annually could contribute towards health insurance or healthier food for their
Each year 440,000 people die, in the United States alone, from the effects of cigarette smoking (American Cancer Society, 2004). As discussed by Scheraga & Calfee (1996) as early as the 1950’s the U.S. government has utilized several methods to curb the incidence of smoking, from fear advertising to published health warnings. Kao & Tremblay (1988) and Tremblay & Tremblay (1995) agreed that these early interventions by the U.S. government were instrumental in the diminution of the national demand for cigarettes in the United States. In more recent years, state governments have joined in the battle against smoking by introducing antismoking regulations.
Spielman, B. (1995). [Review of Women and prenatal testing]. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 23, 199-201.
[9] Shanley, M.L, Surrogate Mothering and Women's Freedom: A Critique of Contracts for Human Reproduction, (Politics and the Human Body) editors-Elshtain, J.B, and Cloyd J.T1995, Vanderbitt University Press, Tennessee back
Arguments against commercial surrogacy typically revolve around the idea that surrogacy is a form of child-selling. Critics believe that commercial surrogacy violates both women’s and children’s rights. In addition, by making surrogacy contracts legally enforceable, courts will follow the contract rather than choose what is best for the child. However, in her article “Surrogate Mothering: Exploring Empowerment” Laura Pudry is not convinced by these arguments.
Title When Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough decided they wanted to have a child, they made the decision that they would like to have a child that was deaf. This was because both Sharon and Candy were deaf, along with their first child, and they wanted to be able to raise their second child, and not have him or her feel isolated from the rest of the family. The issue was, when they went to a sperm bank and asked for a deaf donor, the officials said that deafness is just the type of condition that will cause a sperm donor to be turned away (Spriggs). After news of the couples plan spread, many people said that purposefully having a deaf child was wrong, but the couple completely defended their choice saying it was morally justified.
The sale of cigarettes and tobacco is a multi-billion dollar industry, but is it truly worth all the problems that stem from their use. Health care costs are extremely high due to all the health problems associated with cigarettes and tobacco. Even though research has proven time and time again the harmful effects of cigarettes, and the rising cost of health care caused by cigarettes our government will not take a stand and stop all manufacturing of the horrible toxins.
One word that has come to represent the mid-18th century Enlightenment movement is “Reason”. The French philosophes believed that reason could provide critical, informed, scientific solutions to social issues and problems, and essentially improve the human condition. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is one of the most famous anti-Enlightenment novels for its rejection of these very notions. Through this novel he showed what he believed were gaps in the idea that the mind could be freed from ignorance through the application of reason, and the rejection of the idea that humankind could achieve a utopian existence as a result.