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The number of outlaw bikers is growing globally. Despite this, little research exists on these groups and their alleged violent tendencies. To address this, the current paper uses unique data to examine whether gang violence causes outlaw biker violence. The period examined runs from mid-2008 until early 2012 during which violent clashes occurred between outlaw bikers and street gang members involved in an alleged conflict in Copenhagen, Denmark. A precise description of each individual act of violence would make it possible to identify whether specific acts were carried out in furtherance of the alleged conflict. This would allow one to determine whether outlaw bikers commit violence on behalf of their club. However, such knowledge is unavailable. The paper therefore takes a different approach by examining whether acts of violence committed by the two groups are statistically associated. In other words, it considers whether one or more acts can be described as retaliatory during the observation periods. The sample consists of 640 individuals involved with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club or with non-biker street gangs–both of which are present in Copenhagen. Statistical models are used to predict 143 violent events committed by 196 outlaw bikers. The results suggest that violence committed by gang members predicts violence committed by outlaw bikers. This indicates that violent acts committed by outlaw bikers are at least partly a form of retaliation carried out on behalf of their club. The paper expands the literature on the kinds of inter-group, micro-level processes that can lead to reciprocal violence by including outlaw bikers in a literature that has previously focused on non-biker street gangs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003 it became legal to carry out human embryonic stem (hES) cell research in Denmark using embryos that are considered 'spare' in connection with fertility treatment. The public debate preceding the change of the Fertility Act presented the 'spare' embryo as a biological fact and discussed whether it was possible and morally acceptable to connect a given stock of 'spare' embryos to the stem cell lab. This paper tells a different story. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a fertility clinic in Copenhagen and among stem cell researchers, we argue that 'spare' embryos are not straightforward biological facts. Rather, complex decision-making processes constitute embryos as 'spare' and thus as possible objects of exchange between couples in fertility treatment, stem cell researchers and future citizens in need of regenerative medicine. The ongoing fact-making of the 'spare' embryo in the fertility clinic reveals the network of relationships and conflicting responsibilities in which clinicians are positioned. Using the spatial metaphor of a moral landscape we explore how clinicians try out new moral pathways when seeking alternative ways to obtain and classify embryos as 'spare'. We argue that changing moral landscapes and 'spare' embryos are being co-produced in the development of hES cell research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]