Sex

Imagine that you became pregnant. Imagine that you were entirely dependent upon your husband. Imagine that you became the victim of domestic violence during that pregnancy, and your husband began demanding that you did not give birth to a baby girl. Facing strong social pressure, coercion, or violence to end a pregnancy because you are carrying a girl, is a reality for a disturbing number of women in Britain, according to women’s advocacy organisation Jeena International, which helps women escape domestic violence. To begin tackling this issue, a large group of MPs led by Fiona Bruce have proposed the Abortion (Sex Selection) Bill. This is a short and simple piece

Every day, without fail, some celebrity or public figure will be quoted spouting a meaningless or disingenuous off-the-cuff cliché, to either big himself up or excuse some misdemeanour. Or simply to gull the public. From now on, then, we’ll be highlighting this sort of egregious shit in this brand! new! ‘Fatuous Phrase of the Week’ spot. This week it’s one that has always got my goat: ‘battling my demons’. I hate this phrase partly for its ubiquity and partly for political reasons. Slebs are always telling us they’re ‘battling with their demons’ and by so doing are attempting to get themselves off the hook. Poor old Brooks Newmark MP used it

The successful transplantation of a uterus represents the last major surgical goal in the field of reproductive gynaecology. This feat has recently been achieved by a team at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The 36-year-old patient was born with a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome. The condition occurs in one out of every 4,000 babies, and presents as the absence of a uterus and sometimes a vagina. The absence of a kidney may also be a feature of this condition. MRKH Syndrome usually manifests in late puberty. Because these women appear outwardly normal, the absence of a vagina or uterus will only be suspected after examination, and subsequently confirmed

How will Cameron be remembered in years to come? As a steady-as-she-goes pragmatist or a radical reformer? In actual fact, he’s both. No modern Tory leader has been so good at looking calm under fire, yet there is a more radical Cameron. The insouciance is partly an act. In this week’s podcast, Freddy Gray, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth examine these two sides of Cameron. With the party conference looming, and the election just eight months away, Cameron needs to make the case for Tory radicalism. The Manchester dogs’ home fire has revealed our strange attitude to animal suffering. There is a glaring double standard in our adoration for our pets

When Mary Jane Mowat remarked recently that rape conviction statistics would not improve ‘until women stop getting so drunk,’ the retired Crown Court judge knew there would be a row. It followed. The judge, knowing that only 60 per cent of rape charges that reach court end in conviction, was making a narrow point. There are big evidential difficulties in pitting the claimed recollection of someone who says she was too drunk to know what she was doing against the claimed recollection of someone who plainly wasn’t. But the row spread wider, as it keeps doing, into the moral status of taking advantage of an inebriated woman. Rape need not

Anybody with an ounce of compassion would have been doffing caps in recent days to Frank Maloney — as, indeed, absolutely everybody with an ounce of compassion vigorously and noisily was. His announcement that he is undergoing a sex change has been met by plaudits from far and wide, notably from within the muscularly male world of boxing in which he made his name and from where his former client, Lennox Lewis, has led the cheerleading. Quite right, too. Maloney’s appalling, sometimes suicidal misery of half a century is beyond imagination; his eventual admission to his beloved wife was heartbreaking to read and his courage, now, in going public — albeit