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Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Law

Gonzales V. Oregon And Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical And Policy Issues, Ken Levy Dec 2013

Gonzales V. Oregon And Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical And Policy Issues, Ken Levy

Ken Levy

No abstract provided.


Life And Death Decision-Making: Judges V. Legislators As Sources Of Law In Bioethics, Charles Baron Aug 2013

Life And Death Decision-Making: Judges V. Legislators As Sources Of Law In Bioethics, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

In some situations, courts may be better sources of new law than legislatures. Some support for this proposition is provided by the performance of American courts in the development of law regarding the “right to die.” When confronted with the problems presented by mid-Twentieth Century technological advances in prolonging human life, American legislators were slow to act. It was the state common law courts, beginning with Quinlan in 1976, that took primary responsibility for gradually crafting new legal principles that excepted withdrawal of life-prolonging treatment from the application of general laws dealing with homicide and suicide. These courts, like the …


Blood Transfusions, Jehovah’S Witnesses, And The American Patients’ Rights Movement, Charles H. Baron Aug 2013

Blood Transfusions, Jehovah’S Witnesses, And The American Patients’ Rights Movement, Charles H. Baron

Charles H. Baron

The litigation to protect Jehovah’s Witnesses from unwanted blood transfusions, which their theology considers a violation of the biblical prohibition against drinking blood, has produced important changes in both the right to refuse treatment and in the preferred treatment methods of all patients. This article traces the evolution of the rights of competent medical patients in the United States to refuse medical treatment. It also discusses the impact this litigation has had on the medical community’s realization that blood transfusions were neither as safe nor as medically necessary as medical culture posited.


Competency And Common Law: Why And How Decision-Making Capacity Criteria Should Be Drawn From The Capacity-Determination Process, Charles Baron Aug 2013

Competency And Common Law: Why And How Decision-Making Capacity Criteria Should Be Drawn From The Capacity-Determination Process, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

Determining competence to request physician-assisted suicide should be no more difficult than determining competence to refuse life-prolonging treatment. In both cases, criteria and procedures should be developed out of the process of actually making capacity determinations; they should not be promulgated a priori. Because patient demeanor plays a critical role in capacity determinations, it should be made part of the record of such determinations through greater use of video- and audiotapes.


Hastening Death: The Seven Deadly Sins Of The Status Quo, Charles Baron Aug 2013

Hastening Death: The Seven Deadly Sins Of The Status Quo, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

The seven deadly sins of the status quo -- inhumanity, paternalism, Utilitarianism, hypocrisy, lawlessness, injustice, and the deadly risk of error and abuse -- are seven arguments against maintaining the artificial bright-line distinction between the prohibition against assisted suicide and the allowance of patients’ right to refuse life-prolonging treatment. This article calls on courts and legislatures to follow the successful example of the Oregon Death with Dignity statute.


Throwing Dirt On Doctor Frankenstein’S Grave: Access To Experimental Treatments At The End Of Life, Michael J. Malinowski Jul 2013

Throwing Dirt On Doctor Frankenstein’S Grave: Access To Experimental Treatments At The End Of Life, Michael J. Malinowski

Michael J. Malinowski

All U.S. federal research funding triggers regulations to protect human subjects known as the Common Rule, a collaborative government effort that spans seventeen federal agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services has been in the process of re-evaluating the Common Rule comprehensively after decades of application and in response to the jolting advancement of biopharmaceutical science. The Common Rule designates specific groups as “vulnerable populations”—pregnant women, fetuses, children, prisoners, and those with serious mental comprehension challenges—and imposes heightened protections of them. This article addresses a question at the cornerstone of regulations to protect human subjects as biopharmaceutical research and …


Respecting, Rather Than Reacting To, Race In Biomedical Research: A Response To Professors Caulfield And Mwaria, Michael J. Malinowski May 2013

Respecting, Rather Than Reacting To, Race In Biomedical Research: A Response To Professors Caulfield And Mwaria, Michael J. Malinowski

Michael J. Malinowski

This Commentary is part of a colloquy on race-based genetics research.


Dealing With The Realities Of Race And Ethnicity: A Bioethics-Centered Argument In Favor Of Race-Based Genetics Research, Michael J. Malinowski May 2013

Dealing With The Realities Of Race And Ethnicity: A Bioethics-Centered Argument In Favor Of Race-Based Genetics Research, Michael J. Malinowski

Michael J. Malinowski

No abstract provided.


So-Called "Partial-Birth Abortion" Bans: Bad Medicine? Maybe. Bad Law? Definitely!, Ann Maclean Massie Jan 2013

So-Called "Partial-Birth Abortion" Bans: Bad Medicine? Maybe. Bad Law? Definitely!, Ann Maclean Massie

Ann MacLean Massie

None available.


Roger Douglas Groot: A Personal Memoir, Ann Maclean Massie Jan 2013

Roger Douglas Groot: A Personal Memoir, Ann Maclean Massie

Ann MacLean Massie

No abstract provided.


Regulating Choice: A Constitutional Law Response To Professor John A. Robertson's Children Of Choice, Ann Maclean Massie Jan 2013

Regulating Choice: A Constitutional Law Response To Professor John A. Robertson's Children Of Choice, Ann Maclean Massie

Ann MacLean Massie

No abstract provided.


Withdrawal Of Treatment For Minors In A Persistent Vegetative State: Parents Should Decide, Ann Maclean Massie Jan 2013

Withdrawal Of Treatment For Minors In A Persistent Vegetative State: Parents Should Decide, Ann Maclean Massie

Ann MacLean Massie

No abstract provided.