What they mean by "good science': the medical community's response to boutique fetal ultrasounds.

Since 1994, when the first fetal imaging boutique appeared in Texas, many sites have been established around the country for parents to receive nonmedical fetal imaging using three- and four-dimensional ultrasound machines. These businesses boast the benefits they offer to parental-fetal bonding, but the medical community objects to the use of ultrasound machines for nonmedical purposes. In this article, I present the statements released by the medical community, highlighting the alarmist strategies used to paint boutique ultrasounds as bad science and elevate the medical use of ultrasounds. Through a close reading of the statements, it is shown that the medical community's primary concern is not the health of the fetus or the woman but rather their place as the sole users of fetal ultrasounds. This detailed analysis reveals a medical community fearful that its authority is being usurped and is therefore responding with statements meant to denigrate boutique fetal ultrasounds.

Sexual rights and gender roles in a religious context.

A common feature of the five faiths discussed in this article is change over time. This allowed diversity within the religions, and generally led to a degree of liberalization, but in some faiths or their sects, resulted in a narrow or rigid interpretation. For example, the golden Vedic Period of Hinduism in India when "women were worshipped" gradually faded, ushering in the social evils of female feticide, child marriage, and "sati." The advent of Islam in the seventh century banned female infanticide, but has been unable to abolish many tribal pre-Islamic customs such as female genital mutilation in Africa and "honor killings" in parts of Asia. On the other hand, in China, the inferior status of women accorded by Confucianism has been rectified to a large extent by legislation; this has, however, been offset by a restrictive population policy allowing only one child or two children per couple in some areas of the country (with no limit in Tibet), which has led millions of women to resort to prenatal sex diagnosis and abortion if the fetus is female. In the West, the debate over the use of biomedical technology continues, with various rabbinic rulings permitting the use of assisted reproductive technologies by Jews to fulfill the obligation to procreate, and the Vatican reinforcing its opposition to these and to genetic testing on embryos and embryonic stem cell research.