Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Common Law Inside A Social Hierarchy: Power Or Reason?, Katharine B. Silbaugh
The Common Law Inside A Social Hierarchy: Power Or Reason?, Katharine B. Silbaugh
Faculty Scholarship
Anita Bernstein argues that the common law gives women, too, the right to say no to what they do not want. She demonstrates that the common law is a far-reaching defense of condoned self-regard, a system that allows individuals to place their own interests above the interests of others, particularly when seeking to exclude others. She, therefore, places in the common law a right to protection from rape and a near-absolute right to expel a pregnancy. Bernstein reasons that women’s exclusion from the common law right to say no was a mistake produced by their absence from the judiciary. This …
Will Focusing On Men's Moral Calculus Make Abortion Less "About" Gender?, Linda C. Mcclain
Will Focusing On Men's Moral Calculus Make Abortion Less "About" Gender?, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
Decades ago, feminist leader Gloria Steinem quipped that, “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” As President Trump reinstates restrictions on women’s reproductive rights that the Obama Administration lifted (such as the “global gag rule”), the visual imagery of Trump signing executive orders while surrounded by an audience of white men raises – once again – the question of how gender shapes the abortion issue. In the recent unsuccessful Republican effort to repeal “Obamacare,” when Kansas Senator Pat Roberts was asked whether he supported removing the mandate that insurance companies cover “essential health benefits” such as maternity …
Corporate Conscience And The Contraceptive Mandate: A Dworkinian Reading, Linda C. Mcclain
Corporate Conscience And The Contraceptive Mandate: A Dworkinian Reading, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
When a closely-divided U.S. Supreme Court decided Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), upholding a challenge by three for-profit corporations to the contraceptive coverage provisions (“contraceptive mandate”) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“ACA”), sadly missing in the flurry of commentary was the late Ronald Dworkin’s assessment. This essay asks, “What would Dworkin do?,” if evaluating that case as well as Wheaton College v. Burwell, in which, over a strong dissent by Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan, the Court granted Wheaton College emergency relief from complying with ACA’s accommodation procedure for religious nonprofit organizations who object to …
"At The Hospital There Are No Human Rights": Reproductive And Sexual Rights Violations Of Women Living With Hiv In Namibia, Aziza Ahmed
Faculty Scholarship
This report documents the ongoing stigma and discrimination of women living with HIV in Namibia, building on prior findings and investigations on the subject, such as the 2008 research conducted by the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and the Namibian Women’s Health Network (NWHN). The report, based upon both desk research and a field mission, examines the human rights situation related to sexual and reproductive health of women living with HIV, including the gravity and ongoing nature of forced and coerced sterilizations in Namibia. The report also provides evidence of violations of informed consent in the context …
Marriage Pluralism, Family Law Jurisdiction, And Sex Equality In The United States, Linda C. Mcclain
Marriage Pluralism, Family Law Jurisdiction, And Sex Equality In The United States, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
In many regions of the world, rights guaranteed under the civil law, including rights to gender equality within marriage and rights in the distribution of family property and child custody upon divorce, are in conflict with the principles of religious law. Women's rights issues are often at the heart of these tensions, which present pressing challenges for theorists, lawyers, and policymakers. This anthology brings together leading scholars and activists doing innovative work in Jewish law, Muslim law, Christian law, and African customary law. Using examples drawn from a variety of nations and religions, they interrogate the utility of recent theoretical …
Hiv And Women: Incongruent Policies, Criminal Consequences, Aziza Ahmed
Hiv And Women: Incongruent Policies, Criminal Consequences, Aziza Ahmed
Faculty Scholarship
UN Women must take an aggressive role in the standardization of laws and policies at the global and national level where their incongruence has negative and often criminal consequences for the health and lives of women and girls. This article focuses in on three such examples: opt-out testing for HIV, criminalization of vertical transmission, and the new World Health Organization guidelines on breastfeeding.
Care As A Public Value: Linking Responsibility, Resources, And Republicanism, Linda C. Mcclain
Care As A Public Value: Linking Responsibility, Resources, And Republicanism, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
I begin this Article with the preceding two statements concerning care for children because they focus on the relationship between resources and responsibility and capture two conflicting approaches to that relationship. The first statement resists a definition of "responsibility" that leaves out the work of social reproduction, that is, of caring for children and preparing them to take their place as responsible, self-governing members of society. Highlighting the lack of resources that poor parents face when tackling the work of social reproduction, the statement also suggests common ground among parents across class lines as to the importance of caring for …
Reconstructive Tasks For A Liberal Feminist Conception Of Privacy, Linda C. Mcclain
Reconstructive Tasks For A Liberal Feminist Conception Of Privacy, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
If liberal conceptions of privacy survive appropriately vigorous feminist critique and re-emerge in beneficially reconstructed forms, then why haven't more feminists gotten the message and embraced, rather than spurned, such privacy? If liberal privacy survives feminist critique, does it face an even more serious threat if contemporary society has both diminishing expectations of and taste for privacy? Does the transformation of the very notion of "private life," due in part to the rise of such new technologies as the Internet and its seemingly endless possibilities for making oneself accessible to others and gaining access to others, suggest the need for …
'Atomistic Man' Revisited: Liberalism, Connection, And Feminist Jurisprudence, Linda C. Mcclain
'Atomistic Man' Revisited: Liberalism, Connection, And Feminist Jurisprudence, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
One of the major strains of feminist jurisprudence has criticized American law, and the liberal jurisprudence and political philosophy on which it is said to be grounded, as male or masculine.' A central theme of the critique has been that the law embodies a masculine perspective in emphasizing autonomy and the individual over interdependency and the community. Liberalism has been viewed as inextricably masculine in its model of separate, atomistic, competing individuals establishing a legal system to pursue their own interests and to protect them from others' interference with their rights to do so. Hence, it is said that liberal, …
The Poverty Of Privacy?, Linda C. Mcclain
The Poverty Of Privacy?, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
This Article has two aims. First, it defends a continuing role for the right of privacy in arguments -for women's reproductive freedom against charges that privacy is an impoverished concept. Second, it raises cautions about certain feminist critiques of privacy that would ground this freedom in notions of reproductive responsibilities. As this Article was first presented at a conference, "Reproductive Issues in a Post-Roe' World," held in the wake of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,2 the first question is: Are we now, given the Supreme Court's recent decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey,' in a "post-Roe world"? Furthermore, what remains …
The Status Of Women In Israel - Myth And Reality, Pnina Lahav
The Status Of Women In Israel - Myth And Reality, Pnina Lahav
Faculty Scholarship
The issue of women's rights has been subjected to reexamination and redefinition in recent years. The legal structure relevant to this issue, so clearly intertwined with traditional values and historical prejudices, is increasingly studied in an attempt to find ways to achieve equality of the sexes in our lifetime. In this context, cross-cultural study of diverse societies and legal systems can make a vital contribution. A step forward in this direction was taken in the fall 1972 issue of this journal, in a symposium on the status of women. Among others, the Israeli legal system was discussed by Plea Albeck, …