EP debunking Friday - sniffing out the perfect partner

As people keep moaning about the length of these debunking posts, I'll keep this one short. Browsing Feminist Philosophers I was reminded of this story from a few days ago:

"They say that opposites attract. But it seems the Pill may be preventing women sniffing out men who are opposite enough...But researchers found that the Pill disrupts a woman's power to recognise the aroma of a suitable partner."

This story is based on this study, "MHC-correlated odour preferences in humans and the use of oral contraceptives" an epub in Proc. R. Soc. B. The reasoning behind the study is that the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of our genome shows great variation and this is thought to be related to immune function, so it would be genetically better to have offspring with individuals with genetically dissimilar MHCs from you.

So what does the study do? It looks at a bunch of women, none of whom were on the pill, but some of whom were thinking about taking it. So they got these women to smell the shredded sweaty shirts of men with either genetically similar or dissimilar MHCs:

"Almost 100 women then sniffed the shirts and gave their opinions on the 'pleasantness' and ' desirability' of the odour twice over a three-month period. Many started taking the Pill during the experiment - and their opinions of the smell of the T-shirts changed...Researcher Craig Roberts said: 'The results showed that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive Pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odours.'"

So this is supposed to be evidence that:

"Saddled with the wrong man - someone who in scientific terms has similar genes - she may find it hard to become pregnant and any children she does have may have a lower resistance to infection.

What is more, when she stops taking the Pill and her sense of smell returns to normal, she's more likely to fall out of love, the Liverpool and Newcastle universities research suggests."

So is this what the study actually shows? Of course not. Without even getting into the question of whether woman actually choose partners based on the smell of their sweat, in actual fact the study found that women didn't rate the pleasantness, desirability, or intensity of the odour of men with dissimilar MHCs as any higher than men with similar MHCs.

The only significant finding was an interaction on an ANOVA where women on the pill showed a reduction in the amount they favoured MHC dissimilar odours, but there was no statistically significant difference between women on the pill and women not on the pill in the degree to which they favoured genetically dissimilar men. The interesting finding is that women not yet on the pill, but who intended to go on the pill seemed to favour MHC dissimilar men more than other women (presumably this wasn't statistically significant) and this is what is driving the interaction (the preference for dissimilar men normalises back to being like other women after they are taking the pill (see the figure, average odour 'desirability' for MHC dissimilar men minus MHC similar men, white bar represents first rating {before women started the pill} and the grey bar the second rating {with women in the pill group having started the pill}).

So it is pretty unlikely that taking the pill will cause problems becoming pregnant or children with a lower resistance to infection, since women not on the pill don't seem to favour MHC dissimilar odours (and thus men?) anyway, and women taking the pill don't show any difference in their preference for MHC dissimilar men compared to women not on the pill anyway.

The Mail does carry a contrary opinion from Professor Bill Ledger (Sheffield University) who wonders whether the smell of sweat is likely to overide the 'intellectual and emotional feeling' of a relationship but curiously doesn't attack the methodology of the paper. I wonder whether this is another example of embargoed press releases where those commenting on the paper don't actually get to see it and point out the obvious flaws.

Birth rape

Interesting, if bad tempered, exchange going on between Dr Crippen and the F Word (and others) over this post there on 'birth rape' and 'medical rape':

"A woman who is raped while giving birth does not experience the assault in a way that fits neatly within the typical definitions we hold true in civilised society. A penis is usually nowhere to be found in the story and the perpetrator may not even possess one. But fingers, hands, suction cups, forceps, needles and scissors… these are the tools of birth rape and they are wielded with as much force and as little consent as if a stranger grabbed a passer-by off the street and tied her up before having his way with her. Women are slapped, told to shut up, stop making noise and a nuisance of themselves, that they deserve this, that they shouldn’t have opened their legs nine months ago if they didn’t want to open them now. They are threatened, intimidated and bullied into submitting to procedures they do not need and interventions they do not want. Some are physically restrained from moving, their legs held open or their stomachs pushed on."

I'm somewhat ambivalent as to where my sympathies lie in this argument. I've seen some callous behaviour in the delivery room (more often from midwives than doctors I have to say). Of course any medical procedure carried out without consent is assault, and a patient can withdraw that consent at any time. On the other hand, when carrying out examinations and procedures which are uncomfortable it is always sensible, when a patient wants you to stop because of discomfort, to engage in at least some discussion with them - this is because people are often just temporarily unhappy about the discomfort and will continue with a little encouragement, avoiding terminating the procedure and requiring the whole experience to be repeated. This applies as much to inserting a cannula as to intimate examinations. I don't think there is any easy answer as to where the line lies, which is why doctors are always walking something of a tightrope between best interest and violation of autonomy.

"...the deaths of these five women is no great loss"

Want more reasons to hate vile Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn? Then look here.

British 'girls' are mingers

Really nothing can be added to this little gem from Tad Safran in the Times:

"I am a massive fan of British women. UK girls, in my opinion, are the greatest natural beauties in the world . . . when they’re 17 or 18 years old. The girls I was surrounded by when I was a teenager were sublime roses with lustrous hair, flawless skin, bright eyes and lithe, athletic bodies. They dressed as if there would be a prize at the end of the night for the girl wearing the least. I then went away to Philadelphia for university. Four years later, I came back and wondered: “What the hell happened to all the beautiful girls I knew?” My first assumption was that one half of them had eaten the other half and washed them down with a crate of lager. These girls looked phenomenal when looking good took no effort. But when British women get to the age where they have to make an effort, they appear unable, or uninterested, in rising to the challenge."

As he says himself:

"I always thought I would end up with an English girl. But I’m never getting laid in Britain ever again."

Little girls probably 'ask for it'

Via the F Word, the Guardian reports:

'"A judge in Australia was facing calls to step down today after she failed to jail a group of nine males who admitted gang-raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community, saying the young victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.'

This story has a disturbing combination of cultural relativism (cf female genital mutilation) and good old fashioned judicial misogyny. It was 1993 in the UK that Judge Starforth Hill said of an eight year old sex attack victim that she was "not entirely an angel", and gave the man two years of probation. How can stuff like this still be happening?

Abortion rights in Scotland under threat

From the F Word blog:

"The Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond announced recently that, if he could secure cross-party support for it, a Commission would be set up in Scotland to look into making abortion a devolved issue with a view to decreasing the time limits on abortion.

"Cue the setting up of a new pressure group – Women’s Abortion Rights Scotland – a protest outside the Parliament, two motions tabled by MSPs defending a woman’s right to an abortion, articles in the Scottish media about abortion that, for the first time in what seems like forever, presented the pro-choice side of the argument and not one, but two motions passed at STUC Women’s Congress supporting overwhelmingly a woman’s right to an abortion and condemning the Dunblane comments by O’Brien."

Early medical abortions in international waters

Via the f-word blog, an interview with Rebecca Gomperts:

'She is the founder of Women on Waves (WoW), a radical Dutch organisation that sails an "abortion ship" to countries where the procedure is illegal, before taking women out to the safety of international waters to provide terminations...As a doctor, I look at the abortion issue from a health perspective and the fact is that an early abortion is safer than giving birth. That is not meant to promote abortion because if women want to have children it is a risk they are naturally willing to take. However, if they don't want them they should never be forced to take that risk."'

Who's worse, the rapist or the victim?

Via political scientist and butterfliesandwheels, from the BBC:

"An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped. The victim was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack. When she appealed, the judges said she had been attempting to use the media to influence them. The attackers' sentences - originally of up to five years - were doubled...

According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman, who is from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in the eastern province a year-and-a-half ago. Seven men from the majority Sunni community were found guilty of the rape and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years. But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other.

She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man. On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence. The rapists also had their prison terms doubled. But the sentences are still low considering they could have faced the death penalty."

Ah, our wonderful allies in the 'War on Terror', spreading democracy and helping to make the world safe for women everywhere.

UPDATE
Via feminist philosophers and feministe, according to Arab News:

"The woman is charged with being in the company of an unrelated man shortly before she and her companion were brutally gang-raped by seven men, all of whom have been found guilty and sentenced to between two and nine years in prison with lashes for the crime.

...seven young men noticed the two in front of a mall and abducted them, took them to a deserted area and raped them both.

Arab News has learned that the young man is not appealing his sentence out of fear that his punishment, if the verdict were upheld, would be increased."

Shake that booty

Saw this study in the news:

"They found those with alluring walks were the furthest away from ovulation. A British expert said the research, featured by New Scientist magazine, supported the idea women disguise their fertility to deter unsuitable partners...The women who were most fertile at the time of the experiment walked with fewer hip movements and with their knees closer together. She now thinks the findings tally with other research suggesting that women want to conceal their ovulation from males other than their chosen partner."

And all the stories seem to be derived from New Scientist:

"This showed a correlation between the way the women walked and their time of the month. The women who were fertile walked with smaller hip movements and with their knees closer together."

Is this the media misrepresenting scientific research? Nope, this is evolutionary psychology! The study is an online pre-publication of Provost et al in Archives of Sexual Behavior (there are some great looking articles in there, like a book review of 'God hates fags'):

"In this study, we found that men responded to the changes in gait women demonstrate across the menstrual cycle. Without knowing the differences between the women they were rating, men were significantly more likely to rate women walkers in their luteal phase as more attractive. This finding contradicts research in face research, where men judge women to be more attractive at times of peak fertility (Roberts et al., 2004).

It is possible that faces and gait present different information because of the intimacy with which the stimulus is viewed. For example, faces can only be seen in a fairly close encounter, whereas gait patterns can be seen from a large distance. If women are trying to protect themselves from sexual assault at times of peak fertility, it would make sense for them to advertise attractiveness on a broad scale when they are not fertile, yet still being attractive to people they choose to be with (i.e., during face-to-face interactions). Thus, it is necessary to investigate how men prone to using sexual violence view the walking stimuli, as well as to test the use of sexual coercion both in and outside of couples across the menstrual cycle, to investigate if unadvertised ovulation is adequately protecting a woman’s reproductive fitness interests."

Yep, women protect themselves against sexual assault at times of peak fertility by getting themselves raped when they aren't fertile - clever girls. Not so clever men, clearly their 'sexy hips' detection module is dysfunctional.

So let's see what the study actually shows.

[Summary to avoid reading this overlong post: despite what the paper itself and the news articles say, although men did rate some gaits as more attractive than others, they actually find that they didn't differ in the attractiveness they assigned to women in their 'more' or 'less fertile' phases, and although there were some poorly characterised differences in gait between the 'more' and 'less fertile' phases, they didn't differ in their hip movements or knee distance].

They looked at first year undergraduates and "women from the community" with 36 off, and 23 on "hormonal birth control":

"A female researcher met the participants, informed them that the study was investigating motion across the menstrual cycle, and obtained their informed consent."

Blinding doesn't appear to be big in evolutionary psychology research, I like to think the students knew exactly what they were trying to show and deliberately fucked up the results.

So they then estimated the phase of these subjects in their menstrual cycle (from date of last period and cycle length):

"NHBC[non-hormonal birth control] women participated during the late follicular phase (high fertility phase; 14–16 days before their next period) or the luteal phase (low fertility phase; 5–7 days before their next period, to limit the influence of pre-menstrual symptoms[***]). Cycle stage was confirmed using salivary ferning"

If you don't know about female menstrual cycles have a look here, basically peak fertility is around five days before ovulation and two days after, the follicular phase is after menstruation and before ovulation so the late phase here is around about ovulation (i.e. peak fertility). The luteal phase follows ovulation and the point here is around a week after ovulation (the luteal phase is normally 14 days long, and the follicular phase is also around 14 days long but varies with cycle length). Salivary ferning is a rather old-fashioned and unreliable technique similar to looking at cervical mucus and is popular in 'natural' family planning. Personally I'd have at least used tests of urinary luteinising hormone (LH) to detect ovulation*. Still, they are likely to have at least vaguely segregated on ovulatory phase.

So then they either recorded the women then and there (if they were in one of the correct menstrual phases, or if they were on 'hormanal birth control'). They got other NHBC women back to take measurements in both menstrual phases. So they recorded 41 body markers and used these to calculate "15 virtual markers corresponding to the major joints in the body". Then they did some complicated maths:

"To reduce the dimensionality of the data, the time series of the virtual markers were decomposed into a Fourier series, and then a principal components analysis was applied to the resulting Fourier representation"

This essentially tried to summarise the data in terms of simple mathematical functions (Fourier analysis) and then to come up with a smaller number of factors that best summarises the larger data set (principal component analysis) potentially discovering hidden structure. They then took this 12 principal component model and used the 12 factors to try and construct an equation that could categorise the women as being in the follicular or luteal phase based on them (discriminant function analysis) (they also compared follicular phase women to women on birth control).

Obviously there is a big risk here of overfitting the data - you've got 12 different factors that can be combined together in any way you want to try and distinguish the two groups - and only data from 19 women to compare the follicular and luteal phases (20 women available to compare follicular and birth control). Ideally you'd go and get another sample of women to test your discriminant function on to see if it can accurately classify them. In this paper they attempt the somewhat less ideal approach of removing one woman from the analysis and fitting an equation to the remaining women, and seeing if the removed woman is then correctly classified. Then they use a Z-test to compare the results of removing each woman in turn to what would be expected by chance (50% misclassified).**:

"The linear discriminant function for NHBC women significantly discriminated women at peak fertility from women in the luteal phase (z = 2.59, p < .01, n = 38). A total of 71% of the walkers were classified correctly.2 79% of the ovulation phase walks were classified correctly (four women were misclassified), and 63% of the luteal phase walks were classified correctly (seven women were misclassified). Only one woman was misclassified in both stages. The linear discriminant function for HBC women and NHBC women in the late follicular phase did not significantly discriminate women of peak fertility from women using hormonal birth control (z = 1.26, p > .05, n = 40), with 40% of women classified correctly with this linear discriminant function."

That is the data from the other women lead to equations that could predict the correct menstrual phase by some combination of the 12 gait-derived factors in 9/19 women (3 misclassified on the follicular phase, 6 on the luteal phase, 1 on both phases). Women on hormonal birth control could not be discriminated from women in the follicular phase by using these 12 factors.

So there is some limited evidence that there might be some differences in the gait between women in the follicular phase of their cycle and women in the luteal phase. But they didn't stop here. They then went on the generate hypothetical extreme women using their disciminant function (see here for an animation):

"Upon visually observing these two walkers, the lateral distance between the knee and ankle joints and the hip movement appeared to be the major differences between fertile and non-fertile women"****

But, when they actually looked at the real (as opposed to hypothetical) data they found no statistically significant difference in these measurements between the follicular and luteal stage women. Now you or I might conclude that the findings of a difference using discriminant functions was a rather slim and unreliable one, but not our intrepid researchers, the real evolutionary psychology is yet to come. But we do have one problem, women using hormonal contraceptives have hormone levels that mimic the luteal phase (remember that diagram?), therefore they ought to differ from follicular phase women if these differences are hormonally driven:

"It is possible that this result was due to fluctuations in personality dimensions of women not using hormonal birth control. For example...perhaps HBC in comparison to NHBC women are more extroverted or agreeable in general, so their gait reflects such traits at all times, but such extroversion or agreeableness is pronounced in NHBC women only during times of peak fertility...It is reasonable to assume that HBC women, in contrast to NHBC women in general, are more open to engaging in sexual relations...NHBC women at peak fertility are more interested in sexual activity, especially with extra-pair partners...Thus, walking patterns may be similar because of the interest in sexual activity of NHBC women at peak fertility and HBC women...However, it may simply be that hormonal levels in HBC women may affect their walk so that they are indistinguishable from NHBC women at peak fertility. Women using hormonal birth control have more circulating sex hormones than NHBC women in their luteal phase, when estrogen begins to drop. These extra-elevated levels of estrogen may affect the muscles and ligaments of the body, and thus women’s gaits "

Hmm, yeah, maybe women on the pill walk like dirty slags, I'm not sure I'd like to speculate. If only we had some way to know if higher levels of oestrogen in women on hormonal contraceptive compared to women in the luteal phase means that women on contraception don't differ from follicular stage women. Maybe, and this is just a hunch, we could compare the women on contraceptives to the luteal phase women, or did that not occur to them?

Anyway, onto the main event:

"A total of 43 men in an introductory psychology course participated in this study for course credit."

Ah, psychology students, where would we be without them? So they got them too look at point-light displays using the 15 virtual joint markers:

"We told the participants that they would see point-light walkers of women on the screen, and their task would be to rate the attractiveness of the walkers on a 6-point Likert-like scale"

So what did they find?

"Late follicular walks had a similar attractiveness level (M = 3.66, SD = .5) as walks recorded in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle (M = 3.56, SD = .5) when compared with a paired t-test"

No?! I thought men preferred the less fertile women? Well what they do next is either clever, or stupid, depending on your point of view. So basically, they assign each woman a 'degree' of menstrual cycle based on walk. That is they used the discriminant function to transform menstrual phase into a continuous variable ("menstrual cycle stage z-score"). Then they fitted various models relating "menstrual cycle stage z-score" to the attractiveness rating z-score to try and squeeze out a result. All you need to know is that eventually they managed to fit a model** that suggested that the more luteal-like the walk, the higher the rated attractiveness - and we have to bear in mind that the relationship is between the discriminant function score and the attractiveness rating - there are no real life measures of ovulation being used here - and there is an obvious caveat that extreme data points could be skewing all the results (which are pretty tenuous here) such that one woman had a weird sexy walk in one menstrual phase that drove the discriminant function (it's not like these women were blinded as to which menstrual phase they were in or the aims of the study!):

"Each SD of menstrual cycle score increase resulted in a 0.08 increase in the z-score of attractiveness rating, meaning lower perceived attractiveness"

So, when you look at gait scores 3 standard deviations from the mean, values so extreme that only .13% of scores would be more extreme than this, then the difference in attractiveness score would be .24 (41% of scores would be more extreme than .24 of a standard deviation). That is, the relationship is rather a weak one.

So the conclusion is that this isn't a completetely stupid paper, the use of statistics is puzzling (but that isn't what I intended to go into here), but the findings are a lot less exciting that the press, and even the paper makes out. We've got some evidence that women's gaits may vary in some poorly characterised way with menstrual cycle. We have some further evidence that if you try and find a way to use gait to generate a mathematical function to discriminate between women in the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle then men rate those gaits that score very highly on this discriminant function as being more attractive than gaits that score very low. Anything is else is pretty much just evolutionary psychology just-so stories. Remember, if they had found that women had 'sexier' gaits when in the 'fertile' follicular phase they would have declared it further evidence for women unconsciously signalling they were ready to breed - but instead they found the opposite, and yet they've got a bizarre theory that women are trying to look sexy when not ovulating to conceal when they're fertile. It doesn't take the most insightful evolutionary biologist to notice the evolutionary problem here - once you're broadcasting to the men what stage in your menstrual cycle you're in, why would they continue to find the non-fertile gait attractive?

*Interestingly they cite Guida et al claiming that it shows 78% of women in their most fertile period have salivary ferning. The paper actually found that "Urinary LH...yielded a 100%...correlation...with the ultrasonographic diagnosis of ovulation" but that "The salivary ferning test had a 36.8% simultaneous correlation with ovulation but had a high percentage (58.7%) of uninterpretable pattern."

**Note that there are all kinds of assumptions that underlie the statistical approaches used in this paper, and the authors are not at all clear about whether they have tested to see if these assumptions are true.

***I haven't talked about premenstrual symptoms but it should be obvious that these are present in women 5-7 days before their period before I even make the point that the cyclical symptoms with menstruation do not necessarily follow the simple lay belief in 'PMT', occurring only in the days running up to the period, but can in fact present throughout the cycle.

****Note this line from the news article:

"The women who were most fertile at the time of the experiment walked with fewer hip movements and with their knees closer together."

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! That's what your disciminant function predicted was the case for the most extreme hypothetical values of your discriminant function. You didn't actually find any difference between the 'fertile' (follicular phase) women and the other women on those measures. And you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that those women with the most extreme score on the discriminant function were more fertile!

Abortion and women's health

An interesting thought struck me when reflecting on this amusing segment of the Commons abortion report that I've commented on before:

'“...if you compare women who keep their pregnancy with those who have an induced abortion, those who have an induced abortion are more likely to get breast cancer later on”...However, if you look at the rates of cancer between women who have had an abortion and those who have not had children, the effect disappears.'

When thinking about this odd view that women must be prevented from having abortions because carrying a child to term will reduce their incidence of breast cancer another set of figures came to mind. Maternal mortality from abortion in the UK is something like 1:200,000, whereas deaths from pregnancy are maybe 1:30,000. So it looks like compulsory termination of pregnancy is the only way forward.

Breast cancer and abortion

Orac's Respectful Insolence has a good post on the non-relationship between breast cancer and abortion:

"Although there are studies that claim a link between abortion and breast cancer, they are almost all weaker case control studies, which are prone to recall bias. It's been shown that healthy women are less likely to reveal that they have had an abortion to an interviewer, while women with cancer are more likely to do so, primarily because they are searching for causes of their cancer. (This is not unlike the problem with Generation Rescue's dubious vaccination phone survey.) Nearly all the better designed prospective studies have found no link. Indeed, now there are numerous studies that have failed to find a link between breast cancer and abortion. Given the preponderance of evidence, although it is still possible that there may be a link between abortion and breast cancer, it is highly unlikely that there is. In this, it is not unlike the state of evidence regarding vaccines and autism. Current evidence
does not support such a link, and there are enough studies to allow us to conclude that there probably is none. That's as good as it gets in epidemiological studies."

Note that a case control study takes a bunch of women with breast cancer and a matched (for age etc.) group of women without it and ask if they have ever had an abortion. As Orac says, there is a risk of recall bias. A prospective study follows a group of women through their lives so abortions are recorded before breast cancer has developed, preventing recall bias. Case control studies are a good way to generate hypotheses, and the hypothesis that abortions increase breast cancer risk was plausible, it is just that the evidence did not bear that out.

Dispatches on abortion II

Something's come up so I haven't got time to comprehensively go through this, but actually the programme was pretty similar to the Mail article, which I've already talked about.

The programme basically followed the standard bad science documentary by having 'amazing new research' that everyone has ignored/has only just come to light that is actually nothing of the sort. It also ended on a rather jarring partisan note with first the anti-abortionists making their claims, Sunny Anand is allowed to say something like 'the balance of scientific evidence shows that foetuses feel pain at 20 weeks and below', despite there being no evidence that this is the case, and only a single pro-choice advocate is presented, who says nothing about the science at all, (and no sign of Stuart Derbyshire who is the only scientist who appears to argue the scientific consensus earlier in the documentary)

The primary flaw was to imply that they had discovered brand new research from Sunny Anand that shed light on the question of foetal pain - in fact he has been making the same arguments for years, and has no scientific evidence to support him (he doesn't even do research in this area). There's some nice euphemistic talk about the 'top bit of the brain' that people think supserves emotional and other higher cognitive processes - somehow I think most people would understand reference to the 'cerebral cortex', but then that would probably draw out the contrast with the claim (based on currently no evidence at all) that the subplate mediates foetal pain, and then dies off in development, and the cortex then takes over pain perception (so foetuss have a special bit of the brain that only lasts a few months but is designed so they can feel pain whilst in the womb, but that then largely disappears to be replaced by a whole other neural system to serve the same purpose when the baby is actually born). So there is no reason to believe that this is the case, unless you happen to need to believe that there must be a mechanism that underlies foetal pain because you already believe that foetuses feel pain - can you say post hoc rationalisation?

They also rather slyly try to imply that this 'new evidence' (that isn't) was ignored by the RCOG panel when they came up with their advice on the issue (that's right, not just magic new science, but also suppressed science - these documentaries write themselves!) There was also constant reference to bringing the limit down to 12 weeks (as in many places in Europe) without any explanation as to why this age might be chosen given the discussions around viability or pain at 20-24wks. They showed what they called a foetus that was 'at least' 24 weeks old but implied that this was representative of foetuses earlier than 24wks, which I thought was rather misleading.

There was one amusing moment where the interviewer points out to Prof. Campbell with his 4D images of foetuses that they aren't really smiling or crying because they don't have the requisite neural connections, and he pauses for a long time and essentially says, 'yes, but look at them, they're cute, this'll stop people having abortions', scientific debate-tastic. There was also an interesting point made that before about 22 weeks the lung is too immature to function so that would represent something of a hard limit on foetal viability for the forseeable future.

UPDATE
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) respond to the dispatches programme:

"We are unaware of the work of Dr Anand or any other work that contradicts the
basic findings of the review. Perhaps Dr Anand could direct us to the work he is
referring to. "

Heh, what an understated way to call bullshit.

A few other reactions, mostly of the 'in last night's TV' variety, such as in the Times:

"Abortion: What We Need to Know was “what we needed to know” if we were as keen, as the programme obviously was, about advocating that the time limit on having an abortion should be reduced from 26 weeks to 20 weeks."

and the Guardian:

"Like most viewers, I think, the arguments and spokespeople marshalled by the documentary team in Dispatches: Abortion - What We Need to Know (Channel 4)have probably been largely obliterated by the footage (filmed by US anti-abortion activists) of bloody foetal sacs being pulled from vaginas and dozens of tiny, jellied crimson limbs spread before us, a massacre of the innocents laid out on a hospital towel. It was shocking as an image, and arguably shocking as an inclusion in a documentary purporting to be an unbiased look at the controversies surrounding the issue of terminations before MPs gather to discuss possible changes to the law in a few months' time. "

UPDATE 2
Thanks to an anonymous commenter, Stuart Derbyshire responds to the documentary:

"The programme was a dreadful mess. Anyone who was hoping to be enlightened on the question of fetal pain will have been disappointed. If American researcher Sunny Anand has new evidence demonstrating that pain is possible due to activation in the brainstem, which fetuses possess, I would have liked to see it. But that evidence was not forthcoming in the programme.
...
I didn’t fare any better in my appearance, being reduced to stating that nothing in the past 10 years changes the view that the biologically necessary components for pain are not in place until about 26 weeks’ gestation. My arguments about the importance of the cortex relative to the brainstem and the necessity to understand pain as a conceptually driven, rather than a biologically driven, experience were all cut.
...

Ultimately the Dispatches programme was flat-out biased. In the online forum discussion after the show, Davies claimed the show was not biased because all the comments were balanced by objections from the experts being interviewed (8). The problem, however, is that Davies’ voiceover controlled the show and she was evidently keen to get the law changed. Towards the end, Dr Evan Harris, a UK Liberal Democrat MP who is a member of the Science and Technology Committee currently considering abortion legislation, was berated by Davies for having already made his mind up about viability and fetal pain (9). Harris defended himself well, but in case you missed the point about him having already made his mind up, the programme makers helpfully cut in Sunny Anand to explain that there are ‘none so blind as he who refuses to see’."

Dispatches on abortion

I intend to use this post to keep track of the coverage that the Dispatches report on abortion is going to generate, as well as the Commons enquiry:

Sounds like Deborah Davies has been doing the rounds, promoting her Dispatches programme.

The Today programme had a discussion between Prof. Campbell (who wants to reduce the age limit for abortion) and David Steel (who also wants to lower the limit) so was obviously very balanced - and, contrary to gimpy, the debate was again framed in terms of viability and 4D ultrasound images. To the credit of the interviewer she at least challenged the scientific merit of 4D ultrasound over the emotive aspects. Also reported by the Mail on Sunday.

Yesterday's news contained the revelation that members of anti-abortion campaign groups have been asked to declare their affiliation when they give evidence to the Commons committee:

"Evan Harris MP, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesperson, said:
"This inquiry is specifically about the scientific evidence not moral or religious arguments and our witnesses need to be evidence-led not ideologically or theologically driven. The CMF [Christian Medical Fellowship] risk undermining the inquiry by getting people called as expert scientific witnesses when they are not."

Two witnesses who will give evidence today, Chris Richards, a paediatrician and honorary clinical lecturer at Newcastle University, and John Wyatt, a neonatal paediatrician at University College London, are members of CMF, but did not disclose that on their original submission."

As with a number of outlets the Observer focuses on the Dispatches programme showing footage of abortion, as well covering calls for nurses to perform early stage abortions.

The Telegraph reports that:

"A row has broken out over the 24-week time limit for abortion after conflicting scientific studies clashed over the survival rate for babies born at that stage.

Epicure 2, a nationwide report from a Government-linked organisation, revealed that the chance of survival lay between 10 and 15 per cent, according to evidence submitted to the Science and Technology Committee at the House of Commons.

But other evidence given to the committee - which will make the decision whether to recommend a change in the limit - contradicted the findings and claimed survival rates were as high as 42 per cent at 23 weeks and 72 per cent at 24 weeks gestation."

The Guardian reports that the RCOG (in line with the BMA) want to keep the 24wk limit and abolish the need for 2 doctors to approve.

The Times reports that:

"Marie Stopes International, which carries out 60,000 abortions a year at its nine clinics in Britain, says the 24-week limit ought to lowered to 20 weeks because of evidence that the foetus is “potentially viable” before 24 weeks. This shift in policy leaves opponents to a reduction in the time limit, who include Tony Blair and many Labour MPs, increasingly isolated.

"As part of any reform, however, Marie Stopes would also want women to be eligible for abortions up to 12 weeks without having to gain permission from doctors — two must now give their written consent for the procedure. It says women seeking a termination between 13 and 20 weeks should have the signature of one doctor."

The Telegraph likewise, also saying:

"A Telegraph poll last month showed that most
people, including a large majority of women, agree with him that the upper limit
should be cut back. It found that 55 per cent of voters of both sexes would
welcome new laws reducing the time limit."

According to Channel 4:

"The survey by Marie Stopes International (MSI), the leading abortion services provider outside of the NHS, found 52% of GPs want women to be able to request an abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
Currently, two doctors must give written consent before a woman can go ahead with an abortion.
The poll of 1,000 registered GPs across Britain found 80% described themselves as broadly "pro-choice", while 20% said they were "anti abortion".
Almost two thirds of doctors (65%) thought the current 24-week time limit for abortion should be reduced. Of those who wanted a reduction, 62% agreed with a 20 to 23-week limit.
Three in five doctors (62%) said current guidelines allowing under-16s to have an abortion ithout the consent or knowledge of their parents were satisfactory.Findings from the survey will feature in Channel 4's Dispatches: Abortion: What We Need To Know, which screens on Wednesday. The documentary will also look at scientific research into foetal pain and pre-term infant viability."

---------------------------------------------------
There have been some fairly divergent figures reported for foetal viability at 20 weeks plus (25% have a normal life according to the Today programme, whereas I reported 30% survival at 24 weeks) so I though I'd have a look at the literature (these are articles listed as related by medline to the Belgian source I used in the previous post, and where the abstract looked relevant, and I could get data for 24 weeks or less, and it came up before I got bored - remember that infants born premature may conceivably be less viable than aborted infants at the same age):

Belgium 1999-2000 (previously mentioned study): 22 wks 0%; 24wks 29% survival to discharge (hmm, looks like it may include some late abortions though!)
22-23 wks 7%; 24wks 35% of NICU admissions discharged alive
24 wks 4% NICU admissions survive with no major sequelae of prematurity ('intact')

German tertiary centres 1999-2003: 22-23 wks 52%; 24 wks 70% survival to 8 days
22-23wks 56-76%; 24 wks 74-88% survive to discharge with life support at all gestational ages 36% have no major complications of prematurity

Japan 1991-2000: 22wks 40%; 24wks 50% 1 year survival
22wks 0%; 24wks 74% free of handicap

Canada 1996-1997: 22wks 15%; 24 wks 54% survival to discharge

Austria 1999-2001: 22wks 17%; 24wks 57% 1 year survival
22wks 6%; 24 wks 14% survival with no major complications

This gives us a range of survival at 22 wks of 0%-17%, for 24wks 29%-88%; and a range of disability at 22wks of 94%-100%, 24wks 26%-96%.

The abortion debate II

Further to this, Channel 4's Dispatches has a programme called Abortion - What We Need to Know on Wednesday at 10.40pm. There's a preview in the Daily Mail (!) by the Dispatches reporter Deborah Davies***:

"In next Wednesday's Dispatches programme on Channel 4 we reveal the deep concern among many doctors who, like Dr Argent, work within the abortion service and are passionate supporters of a woman's right to choose, yet who still believe the current law urgently needs changing."

Sounds like we have a nice sensationalist documentary, but we'll have to see*:

"In the mid-Nineties, partly in response to growing public concern about such issues, he RCOG put together a panel of experts who came to the reassuring conclusion that the foetus couldn't feel pain until 26 weeks gestation - safely beyond the abortion time limit.
...
But we found disturbing research in America that directly contradicts this established view. It came from Dr Sunny Anand, who has a distinguished record in helping to prove that very young babies can feel pain. When he was based at Oxford University in the 1980s his work helped to ensure that newborn babies were routinely given pain relief for surgical procedures.
...
He's found similar changes in their hormones and their blood flow, suggesting that foetuses can indeed respond to pain.

Note the distinction between a physiological response to noxious stimuli and feeling pain is elided here.

"He says that while the adult uses the very top section of the brain, the foetus has the first flickerings of sensation in the area below that. Crucially, this part of the brain develops before 26 weeks.

His conclusions could have enormous consequences for the abortion debate. He told Dispatches: "I believe that foetuses can feel pain very likely by 20 weeks of gestation and possibly even earlier.""

I'm not sure how great the consequences of his work are for the abortion debate. In actual fact I can't find any evidence that Anand has done any research in this particular area, rather this follower of guru Sathya Sai Baba has been a high profile advocate for the view that foetuses feel pain in the media**. Presumably he's talking about pain fibre projections to the subplate (rather than the thalamus, which I've never heard anyone claim in any way mediates the feeling of pain). It is highly controversial to say the least to claim that these cells, never previously shown to have any role in pain, and generally believed to have a developmental, but not cognitive role, might mediate foetal pain. As Anand and colleagues said themselves only this year (in the only reference I can find on medline for 'subplate' and 'pain'):

"Connections to the thalamus begin at 14 weeks and are completed by 20 weeks, and thalamocortical connections are present from 13 weeks and are more developed by 26 to 30 weeks. However, it is not possible to measure evoked potentials from the cortex before 29 weeks. Thus, many scientists suggest that it is not until 29 weeks gestational age that there is objective evidence that a peripheral stimulus can cause cortical activation."

There is also further discussion of viability in the article - I wonder if there is a basis for their figures? I wonder how many of the surviving infants could be considered 'intact'?

"Back in July, we filmed a newborn baby named Hope in the neo-natal intensive care unit of Liverpool Women's Hospital. In her incubator, Hope was almost invisible under a pink blanket, surrounded by wires and bleeping monitors.

She had been born at 23 weeks - one week before she could have still been legally aborted. And here she was, three weeks later, still clinging to life with the frailest of grips.

Hope lived for two months, with her parents constantly at her side, before she died. In Britain, modern drugs and high-tech treatment meant she had about a 25 per cent chance of survival - hich would have doubled if she'd been born a week later. The odds were against her from the outset.

But those statistics are changing all the time. In America the chances of her survival would have been better, and what happens over there will inevitably filter through to Britain."

* I'm not confident the way that the reporter for the programme chooses to frame the article. I predict a combination of "but then, Sunny Anand discovered..." and 'he said', 'she said' equivalence of opposing views with no attempt to establish any kind of overview of the scientific consensus. In short, journalists fuck up one more science story, only this time it has repercussions in the real world.

UPDATE
Abortion Review has a good article on the background to this debate.

** Spiked has an interesting article on the partial birth abortion debate in the US, and Anand's role in it:

"...the trials will have a lasting consequence because of multiple damaging testimonies from Dr Kanwaljeet (Sunny) Anand on the issue of fetal pain. The potential for fetal pain was already becoming a common part of the argument against abortion but it is now guaranteed to form a more central role.
...
It was this evidence that enabled Anand to make the following claim during the course of the trial in New York: ‘I can state my opinion to a degree of medical certainty that all fetuses beyond 20 weeks of gestational age will experience severe pain by the partial-birth abortion
procedure.’

But the statement is pure hyperbole and nonsense, for many reasons (12).
...
Anand has made this mistake again and again and again and has now done so to the detriment of women seeking abortion. Distressingly these points were never made at trial, and the Plaintiffs might even have made the situation worse by pointing out that if D&X is painful then D&E must be excruciating. Moreover, in his concluding decision, Judge Casey was able to state that Dr Anand’s testimony went unrebutted by the Plaintiff’s, and provided ‘credible evidence that D&X abortions subject fetuses to severe pain’.

While Anand has done much to advance the clinical treatment of neonates and to preserve early life, he has also done much to confuse the understanding of pain and has now damaged the credibility of medicine. His testimony in California, Nebraska and New York, for which he was paid $450 an hour, plus expenses, by the current US government, was based on an evidently dubious and shaky claim of ‘medical certainty’.

It is understandable and proper for physicians and medical experts to wield their expertise in defence of practices that they believe to enhance clinical care, but it is quite another to wield
expertise against clinical care and in defence of hypothetical and unproven experiences. Unfortunately Anand has long interchanged what he believes with what he can prove and now he has done this in the service of reactionary political objectives.

Anand’s testimony has spawned the ‘Unborn Child Protection Act’, which is a Congressional-sponsored attempt to curtail late abortion on the basis of protecting the fetus from pain (21). Similar attempts to introduce fetal pain legislation have already occurred at the State level. In
2003, for example, Minnesota successfully introduced legislation requiring women to be informed of the possibility of fetal pain when seeking a second-trimester termination (22). The state of Virginia attempted to introduce similar legislation in 2004 but the proposal was defeated (23).

Sponsors of the Unborn Child Protection Act have cited Anand’s testimony and those on the
pro-life side of the debate believe that this legislation will replace the Partial-Birth Abortion Act as the main focus of anti-abortion activity, especially now that George Bush has returned to the White House (24)."

*** Oh dear, looks like Deborah Davies also did the Dispatches report on liver disease which diagnosed liver disease in 50% of people tested using an ultrasound and garnered much press coverage (Metro, Daily Mail, Sun, you know, the quality press). This had me shouting at the TV at the time for its sensationalism and scientific and medical flaws:

"Professor Chris Day, professor of liver medicine at the University of Newcastle, said there was no published study that verified a fibroscan could pick up early signs of disease caused by alcohol.

'In really heavy drinkers about 10% will get liver cirrhosis. The test can only really pick up when the liver is badly damaged – which, if they're picking up half, makes you realise the test must be rubbish.'"

The abortion debate

The F Word reports that the abortion debate seems to be back. It is a disingenuous field where agendas are hidden and reasoning is often obscure and irrational.

I'm reminded of the debate over emergency contraception, involving many of the same faces, where, despite scientific evidence showing that it works by preventing fertilisation, not implantation, it is still opposed by religious groups who pretend that it is a form of abortion to hide their anti-contraception agenda.

There appears to be a growing acceptance in the public, driven primarily by the media, that the limit for abortion should be lowered below the current 24 weeks. The origin of this consensus is the coverage given to 4D ultrasound images of foetuses 'smiling' and 'waving' in the womb circulated by Prof. Stuart Campbell (the lack of interest in what stage of gestation these images were taken tells us much about just how rational this conclusion is - the 'smile' was apparently at 22 weeks gestation) and improved survival of preterm infants.

Actually they weren't smiling or waving at all but on a loop which made it look like they were. Which we shouldn't be surprised by since newborn babies don't smile until around 6 weeks of age (no, I'm sorry, that wasn't a smile, that was a grimace you saw in your newborn), and even then it is likely a reflex.

We can expect a lot of this sort of stuff to get another airing in the media, with the anti-abortionists having the best of it, because the public are pretty stupid, because the anti-abortionists use rhetorical sleight of hand, and because the pro-choice movement has traditionally shied away from engaging the scientific arguments head on, instead focusing on the 'right' to choose.

So what is the scientific evidence? For a start, the vast majority of abortions are performed before 12 weeks, and a tiny minority (under 2%) after 20 weeks before which many congenital abnormalities cannot be detected (the majority of abortions for congenital abnormalities incompatible with life such as anencephaly are performed after 24 weeks - the limit doesn't apply in these cases for obvious reasons), even in Britains slow and restrictive system.

I don't understand why the UK debate is framed in terms of viability, but before 22 weeks this is minimal, rising to 30% survival at discharge by 24 weeks where, of those admitted to neonatal ICU (54%), less than 5% survived intact (i.e. without major prematurity associated abnormalities), and even children born outside the 'grey zone' of foetal viability (22-25 weeks, the period where viability so low enough that it is controversial whether to initiate aggressive therapy) take a considerable hit in cognitive function when they grow up.

You'd think if people really cared about viability they'd press for making it easier to obtain an abortion early (such as removing the need to have 2 doctors approve), rather than trying to limit access, but funnily enough this doesn't seem to be their approach.

Despite all the crap about foetuses 'opening their eyes' propagated by Campbell, at 22-24 weeks the foetus does not have a connection between the retina and the cortex, so isn't able to 'see' anything, similarly, while peripheral pain pathways are present by 10-15 weeks, and spinal pathways by 20 weeks, cortical innervation is not present until around 24 weeks, and functional responses in cortex by around 30 weeks i.e. noxious stimuli just don't get to the bits of the brain that mediate the perception of pain until the baby reaches term.

Anti-abortion campaigners like to pretend it is about the science, and that is how they seem to have successfully framed the latest 'debate', but that's bollocks, its about having the most effective rhetorical devices for them - that is why they only focus on the 'evidence' that is emotive and sways the ignorant public, rather than seriously engaging with the science - here's Campbell:

"Pain is a very difficult thing to measure in an unborn baby. Foetuses have no memory of pain, and no anticipation of it. But if you stuck a pin into a foetus, I believe it would make a crying face and flinch. Clearly, that's an experiment we can't carry out, but we can weigh up the evidence we have and make the best judgment possible.

Babies born at 22 weeks are never treated without analgesics. Why, if there is scientific evidence to prove their brains are too under-developed to feel pain or distress, would they be given medication to protect them from pain? And if we accept that these babies may feel pain, why is it so difficult to imagine they would feel the same sensation inside the womb?"

Why indeed? Perhaps because we know that peripheral pathways can be damaged or sensitised even without central pain being perceived*, and that hormonal stress responses can be activated even without cortical activation, which could have physiological repurcussions later in life.** Disingenuous bastard trying to gloss over the science with ill-posed rhetorical questions - and this is only the start of it. There's plenty of scientific misrepresentation to come.


* Compare with phantom limb pain in people who have their limbs amputated. Damage to the nerve endings causes sensitisation and leads to persistent pain after the surgery, despite no pain being felt under general anaesthesia during the procedure itself.

**Pain pathways to subcortical structures could also still represent pain perception on a parr with that of 'lower' animals, even if not of the sophistication of fully grown humans, which is a consideration for those of us of a more utilitarian bent.

Sexualisation of children

Cath Elliott on Comment is Free has a post that nicely articulates the concerns I have with the creeping sexualisation of children that seems to be taking place in the UK. The playboy branded stuff targetted at little girls is just the tip of a disturbing iceburg:

"...Cardiff Council has announced its latest wheeze to encourage family fitness - pole dancing classes for 11 year olds.
...
And earlier this year Asda was condemned for stocking lacy black underwear aimed at girls as young as nine, although perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised at this move, when their parent company Wal-Mart is busy selling US teens a T-shirt bearing the hilarious slogan "Some call it stalking - I call it love". The clothing store Next also got in on the game with their T-shirt for 5-6 year olds, emblazoned with the immortal line: "So many boys, so little time"."

Crackdown on victims of sex crimes

Police have launched a new campaign which targets criminals who traffick women and force them into the sex trade.
...
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said today that some of the women rescued from sex slavery by a new police operation will still face the risk of deportation.

We can only hope that this will be followed by a crackdown on other victims of sex crimes.

The Verdict

Ok, so the BBC's rape trial dramatisation concluded last night. The football player/selling the story angle was unnecessary and just muddled the case (if you buy their argument that what they were making was an informative documentary). The story is girls meet football players, go back to their room because they can't get food in the bar and have to order room service, one girl leaves and one of the footballers leaves, remaining girl alleges that she was then raped by remaining footballer, then by other footballer returning, and by unnamed third man. Friend of girl tapes her talking about the rape and sells it to a newspaper.

The jurors themselves were a motley crew, Archer, convicted felon, ex-football player Collymore, admitted domestic violence, and advocate of dogging (odd sexual behaviour), Megaman, eventually acquited of inciting his mate to murder someone (the mate went to prison for said murder), Sara Payne whose daughter was abducted and murdered.

I really have to ask just how stupid is Jeffrey Archer? I'd always know he ws a fantasist but the drawling way he delivered his pseudo-profound points was breathtaking. Portillo managed to come out of it better than the rest, it was probably only his IQ keeping them in double figures, the guy from Blur and the entrepeneur also seemed ok.

Megaman and Collymore were never going to convict, probably whatever the evidence, the former because he had been tried three times before being acquitted, and the latter for such great reasons as "footballers are always being accused of rape, but it never comes to court, therefore they don't rape", and "only 5% of rapes are convicted, therefore..." Collymore spent the entire case (ably assisted by Megaman), acting as the defence's representative on the jury, dismissing all evidence and barracking anyone who disagreed with him. I'm told that it is common to have one jurer who refuses to believe in the guilt of anyone, and sometimes another who thinks everyone is guilty, whatever the evidence. Not sure there was a representative of the second group. Collymore and Megaman showed that amusing characteristic people have that when they believe something they think that all evidence supports them and cannot understand that there can be alternative interpretations. There was also some usual "wouldn't have happened to me" type reasoning from a female jury member (think she was in a soap).

The victim having been showed to be lying about being a virgin was also further water muddying and I was surprised by the way the barristers were able to make unsubstantiated claims and insinuations without backing them up ("isn't it always the convent girl types..." was a great line, of course if she'd had a more colourful sexual history that'd also damn her - doesn't seem like there is a woman you can rape without it being her fault). The substance of the arguments, both by the barristers, and in the jury's deliberations, consisted of making up stories, narratives that make sense of the facts available, I guess that's the law for you, very postmodern. The lack of forensic input was disturbing when a fair bit came down to questions of physical injury, and even down to arguments over interpretation of the injuries - you'd think they'd be able to get a pathologist into court with some hard figures.

As to my impressions of the case, there was physical evidence consistent with and suggestive of the allegation, the allegation was plausible, the defendants' stories were inconsistent, I think I'd go for a conviction. But the jury went the other way, essentially their burden of proof cannot be passed unless there is an independent eye witness or admission of guilt. Much was made of the unique nature of rape, where the requirements of reasonable doubt are tested to the extreme: "it is his word against hers". I'm not sure I'm convinced by that reasoning, why isn't theft thought of like that? "Oh, she just gave it to me guvner", it seems to me that the burden of proof has been shifted somehow in raoe trials, and listening to the jurors, that would seem to be their impression, that the woman has to "prove" that the man raped her.

Anyone can concoct a scenario roughly consistent with the facts of the case (see the rough sex defence in "Consent"!) so essentially no rape case can ever be beyond reasonable doubt or "be certain" (which I think was the wording used by the judge, actually harsher than reasonable doubt in my opinion) because there will always be a story given by the defence that could be true. In this case the story wasn't concocted until after the arrest, and after the defendant denied sex at all initially.

Scarily Archer was on the convict side, but then when it went to 9:3 he changed his mind allowing a 10:2 not guilty verdict. But Archer was mostly revelling in the attention and I'm not sure how genuine his belief was (and if it was his belief how valid his change of heart was - to spare the two men another trial despite believing that she was raped by them). The other two guilty verdicts were from two of the more normal individuals Jacqueline Gold (Ann Summers Chief Exec) and 'entrepeneur' Dominic McVey.

As with "Consent" I'm not sure anyone learned anything, and it was a rather unedifying spectacle watching the celebs laughing away during the trial (although they did seem to take it seriously most of the time). Sadly I can see why many women say they wouldn't report a rape - currently it seems to be almost impossible to meet the standard of evidence set by British juries, and at least some of that seems to be due to the assumption that women consent to sex with anyone unless proven otherwise.

Consent?

Watched the Channel 4 docudrama "Consent" last night. Troubling viewing. It took the familiar format of real barristers and judge, ordinary members of the public selected from the electoral role, and actors playing the victim and defendant. Strangely it mostly consisted of a dramatisation of the events (minus the rape scene itself, which was shown at the end), with the trial itself making up a small part of proceedings, and the jury deliberations (which took 3hrs) briefly shown at the end.

The particulars of the case were work colleague acquaintance rape, victim showing bruising on the wrists and clavicle, defence's case that they were engaged in consensual "rough sex", and that the victim was jealous about a promotion given to the defendant.

Personally I was inclined to believe that the guy was guilty - his explanation for the bruising was unconvincing, but the prosecution barrister didn't quiz the defendant too long on how exactly he knew that someone pushing him off was engaging in consensual rough sex rather than just trying to get him off because they didn't want to have sex with him. There were also points where the defendant said things that weren't consistent with the dramatisation (e.g. "I didn't say X", when we saw him say it), which muddied the waters unnecessarily.

As I expected, the jury spent their time arguing off at tangents and justifying their preconceptions with convoluted rationalisations and refusing to entertain the possibility of counterfactuals. I've never served on a jury myself, but I'm told by those that have that this is very much the way that things go - can't say I'm inclined to throw myself at the mercy of a jury of my peers should the need arise (unless I'm clearly guilty - in which case I might get away with it).

Most of the women didn't seem to believe the victim's story because she didn't protest hard enough for their liking (the standard, "I wouldn't have let him do that" stuff), some of the jurors didn't seem to believe that rape was all that traumatic and wouldn't accept that someone could be in shock afterwards and not report it straight away (nicely supporting the proposals that experts give evidence as to the psychological impact of rape; and what would the make jurors think of male rape?). One juror, a crazy looking bloke (who reminded me of Pop from the League of Gentlemen) picked up on the unusual injuries the victim had sustained, which I was surprised the prosecution didn't dwell on - bruising on the right wrist plus bruising on the right clavicle, which the defendant said was due to him supporting his weight (with his right arm!) during sex.

Eventually they come to a 10:2 verdict of not guilty and we're shown the rape scene where it does indeed look like rape.

I was left wondering what it is about rape that leads to such a degree of blaming the victim. There were no discussions of whether or not there was reasonable doubt - something that we're often told is the difficulty in these him vs. her cases. In fact they seemed to have decided he was innocent based mostly on gut instinct.

I know there is a hard core of men who believe that once a woman flirts with them, and certainly if they come home with them, they've pretty much forfeited any right to say no. And the psychology of women blaming the victim to deflect the fear that they could be victims is also understandable. But it seems like there is more to it. I can't help wondering if it is something about the way we think about sex itself, the way it is portrayed as a discrete event. So while kissing is a continuous process, something that you can terminate any time, once you start having sex, and that event seems to begin way before the clothes come off, you somehow don't get to back out - it's too late. Maybe that has got something to do with the way we coyly sidestep around talking about the process of sex, the nitty gritty, whether that is in talking about it, or portraying it on tv.

I'm waiting with baited breath for the celebrity version.

Some other comments on "Consent": Pillock's Pad, FallingStar