Law Commons^™

Pharmacists, Physician-Assisted Suicide, And Pain Control, Alan Meisel

Articles

One of the unintended consequences of the decade-old public debate about the legalization of physician-assisted suicide is an increased interest in pain control for terminally ill patients. Pain control and other aspects of palliative care are seen not only as medically desirable but as necessary to assure so as to minimize the pressure to legalize physician-assisted suicide or utilize physician-assisted suicide even if not legal. Most of the public debate has centered on the role of physicians in assisted suicide.

However, there has been very little discussion about the role that health care professionals - - other than physicians -- …

Managed Care, Autonomy, And Decision-Making At The End-Of-Life, Alan Meisel

Articles

Some argue that legalizing physician-assisted suicide poses intolerable risks, especially as we move from a system of fee-for-service health care to managed care. Although we need to be concerned about physician-assisted suicide in the context of managed care, physician-assisted suicide poses risks in a fee-for-service system too. In addition, we need to be concerned about the risks posed not only by physician-assisted suicide but also by the well-accepted practice of forgoing life-sustaining treatment. Instead of focusing on the manner of hastening death or the type of health care system, we need to show more concern for protections to assure that …

The Disability Kaleidoscope, Mary Crossley

Articles

The question of whom our society truly wants to protect from adverse discrimination based on bodily difference is ultimately a question for the body politic. The aim of this article, by contrast, is to use the analytical tools provided by scholars in the field of disability studies to scrutinize how lawmakers to date have understood the concept of impairment as one form of bodily difference. By viewing administrative and judicial treatments of impairment through a disability studies lens, I have sought to give the disability kaleidoscope a turn and thus to provide the reader with an altered view of impairment …

Due Process, Jurisdiction And A Hague Judgments Convention, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Due process is perhaps one of the most misunderstood concepts in the U.S. legal system, especially as it appears to those outside the United States. For lawyers trained in the United States, 'due process' becomes a phrase with special meaning resulting from the study of a number of judicial decisions, especially those of the U.S. Supreme Court. For lay persons, and for lawyers from other countries, discussions of 'due process' may not always provide a clear understanding of what that phrase means in the U.S. legal system. This paper discusses the historical development of the concept of due process in …