Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Bridging The Gap Between Intent And Status: A New Framework For Modern Parentage, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the conceptualization and methodologies of determining legal parentage in the U.S. and other countries in the western world. Through various sociological shifts, growing social openness and bio-medical innovations, the traditional definitions of family and parenthood have been dramatically transformed. This transformation has led to an acute and urgent need for legal and social frameworks to regulate the process of determining legal parentage. Moreover, instead of progressing in a piecemeal, ad-hoc manner, the framework for determining legal parentage should be comprehensive. Only a comprehensive solution will address the differing needs of today’s …

From Baby M To Baby M(Anji): Regulating International Surrogacy Agreements, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

In 1985, when Kim Cotton became Britain’s first commercial surrogate mother, Europe was exposed to the issue of surrogacy for the first time on a large scale. Three years later, in 1988, the famous case of Baby M drew the attention of the American public to surrogacy as well. These two cases implicated fundamental ethical and legal issues regarding domestic surrogacy and triggered a fierce debate about motherhood, child-bearing, and the relationship between procreation, science and commerce. These two cases exemplified the debate regarding domestic surrogacy - a debate that has now been raging for decades. Contrary to the well-known …

Does The Right To Elective Abortion Include The Right To Ensure The Death Of The Fetus?, Stephen G. Gilles

Stephen G Gilles

Is the right to an elective abortion limited to terminating the woman’s pregnancy, or does it also include the right to ensure the death of the fetus? Important as this question is in principle, in today’s world the conduct that would squarely raise it cannot occur in practice. The right to elective abortion applies only to fetuses that are not viable, which by definition means that they have been determined to have no realistic chance of surviving outside the uterus. Even if abortion providers used fetus-sparing methods rather than the fetus-killing methods they currently prefer, pre-viable fetuses would die within …

What Impact The Supreme Court’S Recent Hobby Lobby Decision Might Have For Lgbt Civil Rights?, Vincent Samar

Vincent J. Samar

Abstract

What Impact the Supreme Court’s Recent Hobby Lobby

Decision Might Have for LGBT Civil Rights?

Vincent J. Samar

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case has created shockwaves of concern among civil rights groups questioning whether for-profit corporations can assert a religious exemption from civil rights legislation under a 1993 federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The matter is of particular concern in the LGBT community given the possible impact it could have on services traditionally offered to those getting married as more and more states legalize same-sex marriage. Though the Court’s conservative majority …

Virgin Fathers: Paternity Law, Assisted Reproductive Technology, And The Legal Bias Against Gay Dads, Elizabeth J. Levy

Elizabeth J Levy

In a small town called Bethlehem, the famous story goes, a young virgin woman gave birth to a son. At the heart of this story lies an enigma that would transform Western civilization: if a woman becomes pregnant without engaging in sexual intercourse with a man, then who is the father of her child? In the twenty-first century United States, the proliferation of assisted reproductive technology (ART) has given this metaphysical question a new significance. More specifically, how the law assigns paternity outside of sexual intercourse is relevant for all men who participate in ART and become “virgin fathers.” In …

Pregnant Pause: The Exclusion Of Pregnant Women From Clinical Research As Sex Discrimination, Richard M. Weinmeyer

Richard M Weinmeyer

Since the early 1990s, legislative and policy reforms have spurred the inclusion of women of childbearing potential in clinical research overseen by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Pregnant women have received no such help, however, despite the tremendous medical needs of this important demographic. This article argues that the exclusion of pregnant women from biomedical research in the United States constitutes sex discrimination as a matter of public policy given the interpretation of existing regulations governing human subjects protections. The current regulations that are in place guiding research on human subjects treat pregnant …

Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith Hale Reed

Judith A Hale Reed

Early marriage affects many communities around the world. Examples of commonly practiced early marriage can be found today in the U.S., India, Syria, and many other places. Although most countries have instituted minimum age laws for marriage, so that legal marriage can only occur after an age set by law, early marriage is still practiced for tradition, control, security, and other reasons. This article explores the harms of early marriage and the international instruments meant to defend against these harms in Part II. Part III reviews theoretical perspectives from legal anthropology and presents a case study of early marriage in …

The Issue Is Being Intersex: The Current Standard Of Care Is A Result Of Ignorance, And It Is Amazing What A Little Analysis Can Conclude., Marla J. Ferguson

marla j ferguson

The Constitution was written to protect and empower all citizens of the United States, including those who are born with Disorders of Sex Development. The medical community, as a whole, is not equipped with the knowledge required to adequately diagnose or treat intersex babies. Intersex simply means that the baby is born with both male and female genitalia. The current method that doctors follow is to choose a sex to assign the baby, and preform irreversible surgery on them without informed consent. Ultimately the intersex babies are mutilated and robbed of many of their fundamental rights; most notably, the right …

Clear Depictions Promote Clear Decisions: Drafting Abortion Speech-And-Display Statutes That Pass First And Fourteenth Amendment Muster, Ryan J. Pulkrabek

Ryan J Pulkrabek

Several states have passed legislation requiring physicians to take, display, and describe an ultrasound to their patients who are seeking an abortion. These statutes have been challenged under both the Fourteenth and First Amendments because the statutes place burdens on women who seek abortion and compel physician speech. Courts are divided on these questions and state legislatures need guidance as they consider reform. This Article proposes a model "speech-and-display" statute that is both consistent with the Constitution and good public policy. This model statute is designed to protect the mental health of patients and the life of the unborn by …

The New Frontier Of Advanced Reproductive Technology: Reevaluating Modern Legal Parenthood, Yehezkel H. Margalit Dr., John D. Loike Dr., Orrie Levy Adv.

Hezi Margalit

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have challenged our deepest conceptions of what it means to be a parent by fragmenting traditional aspects of parenthood. The law has been slow to respond to this challenge, and numerous academic articles have proposed models for adapting parentage laws to ARTs. In the coming years, however, scientific advancements in reproductive technologies, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer and stem cell technologies, will challenge both parentage laws and proposed legal models for traditional ARTs in new and fascinating ways. For instance, these advanced technologies could allow two women to create a child without any male genetic …

Towards Determining Legal Parentage By Agreement In Israel, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

In Israel as in other parts of the world, families, parenthood, and relations between parents and children have changed dramatically over the past few decades. So, too, developments in modern medicine have enhanced the ability to separate sexuality from fertility and parenthood. Many researchers feel that the legal system has not kept pace with these changes, and that traditional models of familial relationships no longer provide adequate tools for dealing with them. In order to bridge the gap between a desired social status and current law, a growing number of parents seek to regulate the status, rights, and obligations of …

Determining Legal Parenthood By Agreement As A Possible Solution To The Challenges Of The New Era, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

Over the past decades, we witnessed changes in the matrimonial and parenting institutions. Medical innovations have further created ethical-legal dilemmas. It is, therefore, essential to create a theory and framework that will determine ways to deal with the resulting dilemma in a fully developed manner. This paper surveys the current, conflicting shifts in family structure and the definition of legal parenthood. In it, I deal with the importance and various aspects of defining legal parenthood. I will also focus on the singularity of this dilemma as it is increasingly apparent in the various fertility treatments. I present the sociological-legal roots …

Penny Wise But Pound Foolish In The Heartland: A Case Study Of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence In Topeka, Kansas, Shelley Santry

Shelley M. Santry

The Rise, Fall And Rise Again Of The Genetic Foundation For Legal Parentage Determination, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

Recently, we have witnessed dramatic changes in the formation of the family and parenthood. One of the results of those shifts is a growing number of children growing up outside of the traditional marriage framework. Therefore, the dilemma of determining a child's parentage, which was usually resolved by a legal fiction as to the child's legal parents, is becoming increasingly problematic. It is appropriate that any discussion of the establishment of legal parentage should start with a study of the rise of the most popular modern model, the genetic model.

It is relevant to point out that from the beginning …

The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent And Abortion Decision-Making, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a type of second-trimester abortion that many physicians believe is safer for their patients. Carhart presented a watershed moment in abortion law, because it marks the Supreme Court’s first use of the anti-abortion movement’s “woman-protective” rationale to uphold a ban on abortion and the first time since Roe v. Wade that the Court denied women a health exception to an abortion restriction. The woman-protective rationale asserts that banning abortion promotes women’s mental health. According to Carhart, the State should make the final decisions about pregnant women’s healthcare, because …