Written by Brian K. Vaughn, art by Pia K. Guerra and Jose Marzan. Published by DC Comics/Vertigo. What is this comic about? : Every mammal with a Y chromosome died at the same time in the summer of 2002, with apparently only two exceptions : a young man named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey. Now, Yorick has to find his missing girlfriend, help continue the human race, and learn why all the other men died and why he survived. His allies are a secret agent known only as Agent 355; Dr. Allison Mann, who tried cloning herself; and his mother, who is a Congresswoman from Ohio. He is being tracked by a group of radical feminists including his sister Hero and by some Israeli soldiers. Recommended Reading : Y : The Last Man is published monthly by DC Comics/Vertigo. The first six issues are published as a paperback collection, "Unmanned." For more information, go to DCComics.com.
Panel from #10: Waco
Panel from #10: What to do with Hero?
Panel from #10: The International Space Station
Panel from Issue #1:The Mexico City Policy ...  | ... and The "Morning-After" Pill. |
#1: Women as soliders in combat.
Panels from Issue #1: "Honor killings" in Jordan.
Panel from Issue #2: Ban on all cloning? Or just reproductive cloning?
Panels from Issue #2: Presidential succession.
Panel from Issue #4: The Culper Ring, Agent 355 | Panel from Issue #8: Women's prison. |
Crossing the Rubicon (last updated April 23, 2003) (back to top) The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" describes an irrevocable commitment to a dangerous course of action, and the phrase refers to Julius Caesar's decision in 49 BC to go with his army across the Rubicon, a small river in northern Italy. This act violated Roman law keeping the military away from capital city and thus away from seizing power, and it is seen as the end of the Roman republic and the beginning of the Roman empire. According to Plutarch's biographical sketch of the Roman leader, Caesar hesitated before crossing the Rubicon as he "considered the greatness of the enterprise into which he was throwing himself" and "comput[ed] how many calamities his passing that river would bring upon mankind, and what a relation of it would be transmitted to posterity. At last, in a sort of passion, casting aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what might come, and using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, 'The die is cast," with these words he took the river." Caesar crossed the river and began combat with his political rival, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, sometimes known as Pompey. Caesar defeated Pompey in 48 BC, and defeated Pompey's remaining forces several years later. Caesar was made dictator for life in 45 BC and was assassinated in 44 BC. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a modern analogue to the Roman law Caesar violated in crossing the Rubicon. That Posse Comitatus Act, now codified into law as 18 USC 1385, provides that federal military forces such as the army cannot be used to enforce civil laws except in circumstances authorized by the Constitution or Congress. At the same time, the military can still conduct some operations within the United States. It can repel invasions or domestic violence when authorized by the President, it can respond to domestic emergencies, and it can assist other agencies in limited ways, such as providing air patrols and helping detect weapons of mass destruction. For more on Posse Comitatus, go here. Sources: Plutarch's Lives : the Dryden translation, edited by Arthur Hugh Clough (Modern Library, 2001). For more on the law regarding the Rubicon and its similarities to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, go here.
The 1993 Branch Davidian Standoff near Waco (last updated April 23, 2003) (back to top) The early 1993 standoff between federal law-enforcement officials and the Branch Davidian cult led by David Koresh (born Vernon Howell) lasted 51 days and ended on April 19, 1993, when the Branch Davidians responded to federal agents' use of non-lethal tear gas by starting a fire within their own compound and reportedly shooting several of their own. At least 75 people were killed as a result of the fire and the shootings. Nine people survived the fire, and 35 Branch Davidians (21 children and 14 adults) left the compound during the standoff and before the fire. The Branch Davidians are generally considered a splinter group of the Seventh Day Adventists that formed around the 1960s and that came under the control of Vernon Howell control in the late 1980s. Howell then changed his name to Koresh and sought converts to come to the compound outside Waco, Texas. The standoff began on February 28, 1993, after agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to arrest Koresh on charges of unlawful possession of a destructive device and to search the compound for weapons. Branch Davidians in the compound began shooting at the federal agents, killing four and injuring 16. Over the next two months, there were hundreds of federal and state law-enforcement personnel present at the Branch Davidian compound. According to one report, there were at least 719 law-enforcement personnel on-site at the Branch Davidian compound on any given day of the stand-off. The various law-enforcement personnel, particularly the FBI's negotiators and its' tactical personnel, were sometimes at odds with each other on the approaches taken against the Davidians, with negotiators feeling that the FBI's tactical strategy worked against theirs. According to an October 1993 report by the Deputy Attorney General on the Waco incident, "the negotiators felt that the negotiating and tactical components of the FBI's strategy were more often contradictory than complementary. The negotiators' goal was to establish a rapport with the Branch Davidians in order to win their trust … By contrast, the negotiators felt that the efforts of the tactical personnel were directed towards intimidation and harassment. In the negotiators' judgment, those aggressive efforts undermined their own attempts to gain Koresh's trust as a prelude to a peaceful surrender." Finally, the FBI decided to use non-lethal tear gas to drive the Branch Davidians out of their compound; Attorney General Janet Reno informed President Bill Clinton of her decision to order the use, and Clinton told her that it was her decision to make. The FBI informed the Davidians by telephone that it was inserting tear gas shortly before doing so around 6 a.m. on April 19, 1993. About three hours later, the Davidians started fires at several locations in the compound, and gunfire was heard within the compound. In the wake of the Waco incident, several Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials were placed on administrative leave, new guidelines were implemented to increase oversight, and more FBI negotiators were made available. Moreover, the FBI's crisis response units were re-organized into a single entity, the Critical Incident Response Group, and tactical and negotiation components were placed on equal footing in the new structure. Sources: Information on the Branch Davidian incident was taken from the October 8, 1993 report to the Deputy Attorney General on the Events at Waco, Texas, on-line here, and from The Aftermath of Waco: Changes in Federal Law Enforcement, Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on October 31 and November 1, 1995.
Hero, the Insanity Defense, and Patty Hearst (last updated April 24, 2003) (back to top) Assuming the legal system was still in force in the Y world, what would a court do with Hero and the other Daughters of the Amazon who followed Victoria? Hero probably would face the most serious charges because she killed Sonia (in #10) as well as the biker who got the Amazons' motorcycle after Yorick (in #4), though she and the other Daughters of the Amazon probably would face some kind of conspiracy and assault charges relating to their pursuit of Yorick from D.C. to Marrisville. But could Hero (and the others) claim some kind of insanity defense in order to avoid being found guilty? That depends on what law applies. States use different standards for when someone can successfully invoke the insanity defense and be acquitted, and some allow for people to be found "guilty but mentally ill;" a few states such as Montana have even abolished the insanity defense entirely. Moreover, juries often reject insanity claims (as a jury did reject Patty Hearst's claim that she was not guilty due to being brainwashed) and people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity rarely just get to go free; courts usually can confine such people to treatment until they are no longer mentally ill and sometimes for even longer than they would have been imprisoned had they been found guilty.
International Space Station (last updated April 23, 2003) (back to top) The world's only space station and permanent zero-gravity research post, the International Space Station (ISS) began continuous operation in November 2000. Three-person crews now regularly go to and from the ISS every six months using U.S. space shuttles or Russian Soyuz vessels, and a Soyuz capsule (replaced every six months) does serve as the station's emergency return vehicle. The crew in place from mid-June 2002 to December 2002 did consist of two men and a woman as seen in the final page of Y #10, though in real-life both men were white and from Russia. The Expedition Five crew consisted of Commander Valery Grigorievich Korzun and Flight Engineers Peggy A. Whitson and Sergei Yevgenyevich Treschev; this crew spent 171 days in space and conducted 25 science experiments and four spacewalks total. The prior crew, Expedition Four, consisted entirely of men (two from the United States and one from Russia) and would have been ending its mission in June 2002, which probably would have made their lasting on their own for several more months difficult.
 Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko (center), Flight Engineers Daniel Bursch (left) and Carl Walz (right) |  Expedition Five Commander Valery Korzun (left), and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Sergei Trschev |
The "Mexico City" Policy and U.S. Restrictions on International Family Planning (last updated February 14, 2003) (back to top)The United States currently does not fund any non-governmental organization that provides abortion counseling or helps women get abortions in other nations, under a policy first implemented by Ronald Reagan in 1984, rescinded by Bill Clinton in 1993, and re-implemented by George W. Bush in 2001. The so-called Mexico City Policy, sometimes referred to as the "global gag rule," requires nongovernmental organizations to agree and certify that they would not perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations in order to receive federal funds. The Reagan administration announced the policy at a conference in Mexico City, President Clinton lifted the ban early in his first term while also lifting other restrictions on abortion, and President Bush restored the ban on his first full day in office. House Democrats tried overturning the Bush administration's renewal of the Mexico City Policy with amendments to H.R. 1646, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003. This language was removed by a 218-210 vote in May 2001, shortly after Bush said that he would veto the entire bill if the language remained. NGOs that do family-planning work thus have to choose between their budgets and their ability to promote and discuss abortions as a method of family-planning. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, for example, said it would not go along with the Mexico City Policy and would thus lose about $5 million in funding that it uses for education and counseling programs. "The global gag rule forces overseas community-based organizations like IPPF to make an impossible decision – forego desperately needed U.S. family-planning assistance, or sacrifice their rights and responsibilities to their clients," IPPF Director-General Ingar Brueggemann said in a statement. "Under the gag rule, recipients of U.S. planning funds must give up the ability to take part in important policy debates in their own countries – in short, the very integrity of their programmes. Either choice hurts the poorest in the world." The U.S. government has not permitted the direct use of federal funds to perform abortions or to provive abortion counseling since the 1973 Helms Amendment. The Mexico City Policy strengthened that policy by ensuring that money could not indirectly fund abortion-related activities by going to one branch of a NGO and thus freeing up money for abortion-related activities. President Clinton removed the Mexico City restrictions in 1993, but they were temporarily re-enacted as a compromise between the Clinton Administration and Congressional Republicans to pay some of the United States' arrears to the United Nations (for more on that, go here). That compromise restored the restrictions for fiscal year 2000 but allowed Clinton to waive some of the requirements in return for a reduction in overall funding for population assistance from $382 to $372.5 million. Both the restrictions and the reduction in funding were undone for fiscal year 2001, but no funds were to be used until the new president took office. In restoring the Mexico City Policy, the Bush administration also said it would maintain the $425 million funding level for FY 2001 "because [Bush] knows that the one of the best ways to prevent abortion is by providing quality voluntary family planning services," according to a statement. Sources: USAID has information on the Mexico City Policy here. The International Planned Parenthood Federation is on-line here; a January 22, 2001 press release on the restoration of the Mexico City policy is on-line here. The International Relations Committee – Democratic Office has a January 2001 foreign policy brief on the Mexico City policy on-line here. The White House's May 8, 2001 statement on H.R. 1646 before it was amended is on-line here. Robin Toner, Clinton orders reversal of abortion restrictions left by Reagan and Bush, New York Times, January 23, 1996. Frank Bruni and Marc Lacey, Bush acts to halt overseas spending tied to abortion, New York Times, January 23, 2001.
The "Morning-After" Pill (last updated February 15, 2003) (back to top)Women can use emergency-contraceptive pills to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours of unprotected sex or sex where another birth-control method may have failed. Emergency-contraceptive pills (sometimes known as the "morning-after" pill, though they can be used for up to 72 hours after sex) have been available in some parts of the world since the 1980s, but were not available in the United States until 1998, when the first pills were approved for the market. Advocates say that emergency-contraceptive pills reduce the need for abortions, but add that women still do not know enough about emergency contraception and need better access to the method. Some doctors and advocacy groups have urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make emergency-contraceptive pills available over the counter instead of by prescription, so that women could have the pills before unprotected sex or could get the pills quickly afterwards. A few states (California, Washington and Alaska) have already established programs under which women can get emergency-contraceptives directly through pharmacists without a doctor's prescription. Some critics, such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, oppose emergency-contraceptive pills on the same grounds that they would oppose abortion methods, arguing that emergency-contraceptive pills terminate a fertilized egg from developing just as an abortion would. Others question whether such pills might encourage unprotected sex. Emergency-contraceptive pills contain stronger, concentrated doses of the hormones used in regular birth-control pills and prevent a pregnancy from developing; they are commonly referred to as "morning-after" pills but can be used within 72 hours of sex. They are not the same as RU-486 (also known by its scientific name mifepristone), which terminates a pregnancy that has already begun. For more on RU-486, go here. Emergency contraceptives became available in some European countries in the 1970s and were specifically marketed for the first time in 1984 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration encouraged manufacturers to develop a pill by publishing a notice in 1997, approved the first emergency-contraceptive pill for use (Preven, which uses an estrogen and a progestin in each dose) in 1998, and another (Plan B, which contains only the progestin levonorgestrel) in 1999. Some researchers say that emergency-contraceptive pills reduce the risk of pregnancy by about 75 percent, though critics say that the pills' effectiveness has not been sufficiently tested. Emergency-contraceptives were approved for use in 80 countries as of August 2002, according to the International Consortium for Emergency Contraception. Sources : Information about Preven can be found on-line here and about Plan B here. Princeton University's Office of Population Research has information about emergency contraception as well as a geographic index of providers on-line here. The Alan Guttmacher Institute's Guttmatcher Report on Public Policy has published several articles on emergency contraception : Heather Boonstra, Emergency Contraception : The Need to Increase Public Awareness (October 2002, on-line here), and Heather Boonstra, Emergency Contraception : Steps Being Taken to Improve Access (December 2002, on-line here). The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, on-line here, has supported the wider use of emergency-contraceptive pills and has published some articles on the subject, such as David A. Grimes, Elizabeth G. Raymond and Bonnie Scott Jones, Emergency Contraception Over-the-Counter : The Medical and Legal Imperatives (July 2001). The International Consortium for Emergency Contraception is on-line here. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a 1998 article criticizing emergency-contraceptive pills, on-line here.
Women in the Military (last updated February 25, 2003) (back to top) In recent years, many countries have expanded opportunities for women in their respective militaries, and several have lifted all restrictions on women serving in units that may see combat. The United States lifted many restrictions in the early 1990s but it still prohibits women from serving in units that may engage in direct combat on the ground. Israel is apparently the only country with a prominent military that regularly drafts women, but even women in the Israeli Defense Forces were generally put in non-combat units and prohibited from engaging in actual combat until the late 1990s. Israeli women were for decades assigned to a separate Women's Corps, but the Corps was re-organized in 1997 and then finally disbanded in 2001 so that women could be incorporated into the general force.
- Belgium (women comprise 7.7% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can serve in combat missions.
- Canada (women comprise 11.4% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can serve in combat functions.
- Denmark (women comprise 5% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can serve in combat roles.
- France (women comprise 8.55% of forces). Women are restricted from some specialties such as infantry, the French Foreign Legion and submarines.
- Germany (women comprise 3.4% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can volunteer for military service involving armed combat.
- Greece (women comprise 3.75% of forces). Women cannot serve in combat tasks.
- Hungary (women comprise 6.4% of forces). Women can serve in most combat functions.
- Norway (women comprise 3.2% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can serve in combat operations.
- Portugal (women comprise 6.6% of forces). Women cannot serve in some combat specialties.
- Spain (women comprise 8.2% of forces). Women face no restrictions and can serve in combat functions due to a 1999 law.
- United Kingdom (women comprise 8.1% of forces). Women cannot serve in certain functions such as the Royal Marine Commandos or as infantry on the grounds of combat effectiveness, and cannot serve in submarines or as marine clearance divers for medical reasons.
- United States (women comprise 14% of forces). Due to combat assignment policies, women cannot serve in positions in infantry, armor, certain artillery posts, Special Operations Forces (SOF) Army aviation, combat engineers, pararescue, submarine, and certain ordnance and assault amphibious vehicle maintenance posts.
"Honor Killings" (last updated February 15, 2003) (back to top) The Middle Eastern country of Jordan has been criticized for tolerating so-called "honor crimes" in which men kill their wives or close female relatives for perceived acts of adultery and for their handling of such crimes. About 25 to 30 women are killed in Jordan each year in an "honor killing," and such crimes constitute about one-third of the country's homicides, according to Human Right Watch. Similarly, the State Department's 2001 Human Rights report for Jordan noted that "one forensic medical examiner estimated that 25 percent of all murders committed in the country are honor crimes." "Honor killings" are not limited to Jordan. Reports indicate that such crimes occur and are tolerated in countries where women are seen as a vessel of the family reputation or as property with no rights of their own. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, reported in January 2002 that honor killings are on the rise around the world and that they take place in Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Morocco, as well as in migrant communities in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. "Honour is a magic word, which can be used to cloak the most heinous of crimes. The concept of honour is especially powerful because it exists beyond reason and beyond analysis. But what masquerades as 'honour' is really men's need to control women's sexuality and their freedom," the Special Rapporteur noted. "Alarmingly, the number of honour killings is on the rise as the perception of what constitutes honour and what damages it widens." Economic and social issues have contributed to the rise in "honor killings," the Special Rapporteur noted. Also, some men may falsely claim that a crime was an honor killing to get compensation or to conceal other crimes, she noted. Jordan has faced particular scrutiny for its toleration of "honor killings" as its penal code explicitly calls for leniency for the killers in such situations. According to Human Rights Watch in a 1999 letter to Jordan's prime minister, three articles of the Jordanian Penal Code exempt or reduce the punishment of individuals convicted of murdering women who are found to be committing adultery, or found "with another man in an illegitimate bed," or who commit a "wrongful and serious act" that inspires a "fit of fury crime." These laws are vaguely defined, Ralph wrote, "yet all three have been invoked to justify minimizing the punishment for honor crimes." Moreover, Human Rights Watch says that Jordan's law-enforcement inadequately responds to threats of "honor crimes" by putting women into prisons or corrections facilities, and by letting them leave only with the approval of a male guardian who may have been the one who initially threatened her. Human Rights Watch also says that Jordan's government efforts against "honor crimes" are "seriously limited in their scope and thus do little to combat the widespread and systematic nature of the problem." Jordan's King Abdullah II, who took power in 1999, reportedly has taken a stronger stance against honor killings, and has supported legislative changes that would put "honor killings" on par with other murders. However, the Jordanian legislature has rejected such changes. Other countries provide reduced punishment for men who kill their wives in certain circumstances. According to the Special Rapporteur, men in Brazil were able to get acquittals for killing their wives on the theory that such a killing was justified. "Enormous pressure by women's groups resulted in the honour defence being removed from the books or judges' instructions to juries. However, juries continue to acquit men whom they feel have killed their wives for reasons of honor." To a lesser degree, some courts in the United States similarly allow defendants in limited circumstances to claim that they were "provoked" into killing their wives upon discovery of their wives' infidelity, thus possibly getting the lesser charge of manslaughter instead of murder. Sources: The State Department's 2001 human-rights report on Jordan is on-line here. Human Rights Watch's August 9, 1999 letter to Jordan's prime minister is on-line here; information about its campaign in Jordan is on-line here. Hillary Mayell, Thousands of women killed for family 'honor,' National Geographic News, February 12, 2002 (on-line here. "Cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women," Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/49 (January 31, 2002).
Cloning and Stem Cells (last updated January 11, 2003) (back to top)The debate over cloning has moved from science-fiction stories to the front pages, first with the creation of a cloned sheep in 1996 (publicly announced in 1997), and again in November 2001 with the announcement that a Massachusetts company had cloned human embryos for therapeutic purposes, though such embryos did not survive long. These efforts represent very different kinds of cloning -- the first done with reproductive intent, the second with therapeutic intent -- and science still appears to be far away from actually producing a living human being cloned from another. In late December 2002, however, Clonaid, a company founded in 1997 by the leader of a religious organization that believes humans were cloned by an alien race, announced in December 2002 that the first human clone baby had been born. Clonaid's announcement, which has not been independently verified, has sparked another round of calls for a ban on human reproductive cloning within the United States. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have recommended such bans since the late 1990s, although President George W. Bush has called for a ban on cloning for any purpose, which would include non-reproductive cloning efforts. In any event, even a broad ban might have limited effect; Clonaid itself says that it moved out of the United States in order to avoid governmental interference. All known successful cloning attempts have started the same way, with a technique called nuclear transplantation, or somatic cell nuclear transfer. This involves taking an egg and replacing its nucleus with one taken from an adult subject. This reconstructed cell is then stimulated to begin dividing and will produce a pre-implantation embryo, what is called a blastocyst. What happens next depends on the ultimate purpose behind the cloning. In reproductive cloning, the blastocyst is then implanted into a uterus so that it can form a fetus, which then can develop into a genetically identical match to the adult subject that provided the implanted nucleus; this is how Dolly was created. In therapeutic cloning, however, cells from the blastocyst are isolated and then used to make a stem cell line for further research and clinical applications; the blastocyst is not implanted into a uterus and does not ever become a fetus. Scientists have managed to use nuclear transplantation successfully with some species -- such as sheep, mice, pigs, goats and cattle -- but not with others, such as monkeys, dogs, and horses. Even when successful, however, nuclear transplantation is an inefficient process; many eggs are required to yield a few successes, many clones die during gestation or have abnormalities, and the mother carrying the implanted embryo bears many risks. Due to these risks -- as well as the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome in any human women who donate eggs for this or any other process -- scientists and politicians generally have supported a ban on human reproductive cloning at the present time. President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommended a temporary ban in June 1997 after Dolly's creation was revealed to the world, and a panel by the National Academies made a similar recommendation in January 2002. President George W. Bush has called for a permanent ban on cloning for any purpose, and appointed a commission to study the issue as well; that commission had its first meeting in January 2002. However, the reach of such a ban is controversial. While scientists and politicians agree on a ban on human reproductive cloning, many disagree on whether there should be such a ban on therapeutic cloning. This is where embryonic stem cells come into the debate. Embryonic stem cells have been controversial in recent years, in recent years especially because of their connection with therapeutic cloning. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that can self-renew indefinitely and that can develop into more mature cells with specialized functions, and embryonic stem (ES) cells, which are derived from an early-stage embryo, are especially promising because they potentially could be developed into a wide variety of tissues for transplantation into patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's. What first made ES cell lines so controversial is that they have generally been derived from sources such as aborted fetuses and embryos resulting from in-vitro fertilization, thus raising questions as to whether such embryos are alive and should be used for such research. Whether the federal government should fund the development of such cells grew into a major policy question in recent years, culminating with President George W. Bush's decision on August 9, 2001 to allow federal funding for research on then-existing stem cell lines as long as the lines were derived from embryos that were already destroyed and that had not been created specifically for research. "We should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines, where the life and death decision has already been made," Bush said in his first major non-augural public speech as president. "Leading scientists tell me research on these 60 lines has great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures. This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line, by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life." As of February 2002, the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry, which is run by the National Institutes of Health, counted 72 stem cell lines at 11 laboratories (five in the United States, including a Wisconsin-based group that had patented several lines, two in Sweden and India each, and one in Australia and Israel each) as meeting the criteria that Bush established. Still, some scientists have criticized Bush's order for limiting the development of more and better-quality stem cell lines. In any case, Bush's order did not go so far as to ban private research that did not meet his criteria; such research simply has to go on without federal funding.The debates over stem cells and cloning became intertwined in November 2001, when a Massachusetts-based company, Advanced Cell Technology, announced that it had attempted to create ES cells through nuclear transplantation. The hope here was that scientists could use cloned human embryos to create embryonic stem cells that could develop into tissues that would perfectly match the person who was cloned, thus ensuring that the person's body would accept such tissue transplants and not reject them as foreign. Advanced Cell Technology reported that it had successfully transplanted a human nucleus into a human egg, but that the most successful resulting embryo still did not grow enough to produce a blastocyst that could yield stem cells, stopping growth after dividing into only six cells. Advanced Cell Technology also tried creating cloned embryos through another method called parthenogenesis, by which eggs are stimulated to divide into early embryos. Of the 22 eggs chemically induced via parthogenesis, all died, and none developed the inner cell mass that yields stem cells. Nevertheless, even these limited results set off a new wave of controversy over cloning. "The use of embryos to clone is wrong. We should not as a society grow life to destroy it," Bush said in a ceremony soon after the announcement, and he quickly established a bioethics commission headed by University of Chicago professor Leo Kass to make recommendations on the subject. That commission met for the first time in January 2002. Bush has called for a ban on all cloning. The House of Representatives passed such a bill in July 2001, which would ban cloning of any kind and subject violators to criminal penalties such as prison and fines. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) has introduced a measure that would also ban cloning for any purpose, though the Senate has not yet considered it. However, many scientists have opposed such a total ban, urging legislators to distinguish between reproductive and therapeutic cloning. The National Academies' National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, for example, recommended public funding of stem cell production in September 2001 and then recommended in January 2002 a ban on human reproductive cloning for at least five years. Sources: President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission did a report on cloning in September 1997, available on-line here, and a report on stem cells in September 1999, available here. The National Academies did a report on reproductive cloning in January 2002 and a report on stem cells in September 2001; both are available via the Academies' website, on-line here. President Bush's August 9, 2001 speech announcing his decision on stem cells is on-line here. The National Institutes of Health maintains information on stem cells and on the stem cell registry here. Advanced Cell Technology is on-line here, and a January 2002 Scientific American article describing their research is on-line here. Gina Kolata with Andrew Pollack, A Breakthrough on Cloning? Perhaps, or Perhaps not Yet, New York Times, November 27, 2001. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Bush denounces cloning and calls for ban, New York Times, November 27, 2001. Clonaid is on-line here.
Women in Government (last updated January 1, 2003) (back to top)If all men were to die suddenly as in Y: The Last Man, the President of the United States would be Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton, the first of two women currently in the 17-person order of succession established by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, which orders the Cabinet members according to the date their offices were established. The other woman in the order of succession is Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman. In the 107th Congress (2001-03), women held 62 seats in the House of Representatives, and 13 in the Senate, constituting 14 percent of the total seats. Women also held five state governorships in 2002. The first woman in Congress took office in 1917 and the first woman elected as a state governor in her own right took office in 1975.
The Culper Ring and the First Agent 355 (last updated March 2, 2003) (back to top) There not only was a Culper Ring back during the War of Independence, there also was an Agent 355 who reportedly was a valuable spy before being captured by the British. The Culper Ring was just one of several intelligence operations that helped George Washington and the revolutionary forces during the War of Independence. Based in British-occupied New York, the Culper Ring was "particularly effective in picking up valuable information from careless conversation wherever the British and their sympathizers gathered," according to a history by the CIA. The Culper Ring took its name from the codenames of its two lead people, Abraham Woodhull (known as "Culper, Sr.") and Robert Townsend (known as "Culper, Jr."). Townsend picked up information from the British due to his roles as a dry-goods merchant and as the silent partner of a popular coffee house frequented by the British. Townsend then got messages out to the revolutionary forces using such then-new means as invisible ink and a numerical-substitution code in which words and names were assigned their own unique number from 1 to 763 (George Washington was 711, New York was 727, and attack was 38). Townsend apparently never married, but a woman identified as his common-law-wife apparently also served the intelligence operations as Agent 355 (the number means "lady" in the Culper code). According to the CIA's history, Agent 355 probably came from a "prominent Tory family with access to British commanders," she was "young, attractive and intelligent," and she gained secrets by keeping near Major John Andre, the chief of British intelligence in the colonies. Andre was captured and executed shortly after meeting with Benedict Arnold in September 1780. The British then captured Agent 355 and incarcerated her on a prison ship, where she gave birth to a son and then died. Her son was reportedly named after Robert Townsend. New York City was the site in 1776 for some of the first battles of the War of Independence, and it then served as a British base for the rest of the war. British forces first clashed with revolutionary troops in what is now Brooklyn Heights in August 1776, George Washington's forces largely evacuated the city in October, and British forces completely took the city the next month. The British then held the city for the next seven years. Washington reclaimed the city in 1783 and he was sworn in as the first President of the United States in New York in 1789 (the capitol was moved to Washington D.C. as part of a deal reached the next year). Sources: The Central Intelligence Agency's report, "Intelligence in the War of Independence," is on-line here; Agent 355 is described in the "personalities" section on-line here. Dan Gilgoff, Washington's web, U.S. News & World Report, January 27, 2003. Eric Homberger, The Historical Atlas of New York City : a visual celebration of nearly 400 years of New York City's history (Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1994).
Women in Prison (last updated March 2, 2003) (back to top) First of all, there really is a women's prison in Marysville, Ohio (as opposed to "Marrisville"), a small town located about 30 miles outside of Columbus. The Ohio Reformatory for Women is the largest of the three women's correctional facilities run by the State of Ohio, it contained about 1,800 women as of February 2003, and it has a nursery so incarcerated mothers facing short sentences for non-violent crimes can maintain custody of their infant children. Overall, women made up about 16 percent of the total federal and state corrections population in 1998; they represented about 6 percent of those in prison, 11 percent of those in local jails, 12 percent of those on parole, and 21 percent of those on probation. About 1 out of every 109 adult women in the United States was in prison. The women in "Marrisville" reflect the range of crimes for which women are in state prison. About 34 percent of the women in state prison are there, like Sonia, for drug offenses. About 28 percent of the women in state prisons are there, like Lydia and Tess, for violent offenses like murder or robbery (11 percent for homicide), and about 27 percent, like Nina, are there for property offenses (10 percent for fraud, and 9 percent for larceny). Another 11 percent are there for public-order offenses such as driving while intoxicated. Sources: Information about the Ohio Reformatory for Women is available on-line through Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction here. Statistical information about female offenders was taken from a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Women Offenders (December 1999), available on-line here.
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