DeForest offers a closely reasoned and persuasive analysis of how the characteristics of biological weapons have affected nations' perceptions of their utility and acceptability. He shows how such perceptions bear in turn of efforts to outlaw biological weapons, even as science and technology are expanding the potential for their use. His paper's historical perspective, broadly researched data, and intriguing analytical approach will measurably enhance readers' understanding of the arms control process.

In deciding whether and to what extent surrogate parenting contracts should be recognized, states are faced with three legislative options. First, they may criminalize surrogacy, in effect punishing those who enter into or facilitate surrogate contracts by fine or imprisonment. Second, states may adopt the nonenforcement option. Under this approach, surrogate contracts are not subject to criminal sanction, but neither will they be enforced. The legal effect of such a rule is to leave the surrogate free to carry through with the contract or to refuse to relinquish custody of the child born of the arrangement as she wishes. In the event the surrogate decides that she wishes to keep the baby, the courts will decide the issue of parental rights in accordance with the best interests test much like that which is employed in divorce cases. This was the approach taken in In the Matter of Baby “M” (537 A.2d 1225 (N.J. 1988)). Finally, the third legislative alternative is regulation and enforcement of surrogate contracts. This would have the effect of requiring the surrogate to turn over the child she has borne for the intended parents even where she has changed her mind, a la Mary Beth Whitehead, and wishes to retain custody of the child.

In so far as any new technology or information in biology or biomedicine is also potentially relevant to biological warfare (BW), and therefore to the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP), BDRP is equivalent to a biore-search program, making it, ipso facto, unnecessary. The papers by Dashiell and Dasey reviewed herein certainly present this equivalence and provide very little, if any, justification of BDRP as having a unique, distinctive military role requiring budgetary dispensations. In fact, the only specific military role mentioned for BDRP, that of protecting personnel, would utilize military means developed for chemical warfare.

As Professor Hill says, there is one important respect in which he and I agree with each other and disagree with what most states would do today. Faced with a surrogacy arrangement involving a dispute over custody, most state courts would decide the dispute on its own facts, according to the court's view about which parents seemed best for the child. Hill and I both stress that custody battles should be avoided, that parties should not have to go to court to find out who will prevail, and that courts should not decide disputes by comparing the parental characteristics of the particular parties. Instead courts or legislatures should formulate a rule of law that predetermines which party will receive custody in the event of a dispute.

In agreement with the overwhelming number of experts, I certainly share the view of Chevier and Hansen that the Biological Weapons Convention needs to be strengthened. Of course it is still a matter of discussion whether the military utility of biological and toxin weapons (hereafter, respectively, BW and TW) changed after the introduction of biotechnology. It is impossible, however, to ignore the 1986 statement of the U.S. Department of Defense (1988), that:

… perhaps the most significant event in the history of biological weapons development has been the advent of biotechnology. It enables the development of new microorganisms and products with new, unorthodox characteristics… Conceptually, then, a nation or terrorist group can design a biological weapon to meet a variety of contingencies or needs… The break through and the subsequent achievements make biological warfare much more feasible and effective for countries which either are not bound by the convention or which choose to violate it.

When I agreed to review L. Cole's book Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas (PLS, February 1989), I did so because the subject is interesting and important. I did not know Cole, nor had I read any of his previous work. To the editor of the PLS and, implicitly, to its readers, I committed to appraise the book as fairly as I could. As anyone whose working life is spent writing knows, much work goes into producing a book. I regard criticizing a book as a serious responsibility, because I know the labor that the author has gone through before the first copy is printed.

Modern science has made it easy for fertile women to become pregnant by artificial insemination. And childless couples have been able to find women willing, for a fee, to accept insemination by a prospective father and agree to transfer custody of the resulting child to the father. Enterprises designed to match willing mothers and sperm-donating fathers have established themselves. The central public policy dilemma raised by this union of technology and the ancient desire for issue of one's own loins—is it wiser for the legal system to provide its normal protections to the participants in surrogacy arrangements or withdraw from the field—was brought to national attention by the Baby M case.

This much I recently learned: don't expect your audience to react to what you say when you talk about ideological critique. Some people love anything with “ideology” in it. They will congratulate you for every use of that term. Others hate the very word and they will shower you with questions they had ready before you even started. I can sympathize with both, I really can; “ideology” is an exciting topic, but that is small comfort if there is something you want to get across. So let me say clearly and right form the start: what I am going to do here is quite boring for those who are heavily into ideological critique, and it is grist off the mill for those who hate it.

I will discuss what people mean when they use the phrase “ideological critique” and I will suggest that they talk about different things at different occasions. Each of those things can be important but they should be kept apart because what one ought to do about it is different in each case. For that reason, the conceptual scheme I will propose is relevant both for theoretical and for practical reasons.