Dr Faith Spicer, who recently died at the age of 95, was a truly resolute pioneer in the fields of family planning, sexual counselling and the psychiatry of adolescence. She was acutely aware of the shame and moral outrage that in her time was associated with premarital sexual intercourse and its often appalling consequences, not least dangerous, back-street abortions. At that time, women stude...

The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 is widely regarded as one of the major events that launched the modern environmental movement. Silent Spring is a compelling blend of stories, natural history, human values, and biological facts. In this essay we consider Carson’s attitude toward animals in Silent Spring and in other texts. Despite the facts that she was raised to love Na...