Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Addressing Mental Disability Head On: The Challenges Of Reasonable Accommodation Requests For Virginia Housing Providers, Haley Fortner

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

A person’s home should be a sanctuary of safety, security, and comfortability away from the demands of the outside world. Yet for many people living with mental illness, a home can all too easily become a sort of temporary prison. Nowhere is this more apparent than when a housing provider stands in the way of allowing someone with a mental disability the equal opportunity to use and enjoy their home. Fair housing law’s reasonable accommodation requirement works to ensure those living with mental illness receive the accommodations they need in order to live safely and comfortably in their own home. …

Covid-19 And The Conundrum Of Mask Requirements, Robert Gatter, Seema Mohapatra

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

As states begin to loosen their COVID-19 restrictions, public debate is underway about what public health measures are appropriate. Many states have some form of mask-wearing orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection. Public health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization has conflicted. From a public health point of view, it is not clear what the right answer is. In the absence of directives, individuals are also making their own choices about mask use. At a time when public health measures, like shelter-in-place orders and social distancing, are being used to …

If A Fetus Is A Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process, And Citizenship, Carliss N. Chatman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Article was originally published in The Washington Post on May 17, 2019. It has been edited and updated prior to its publication in the Washington and Lee Law Review.

Alabama has joined the growing number of states determined to overturn Roe v. Wade by banning abortion from conception forward. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act subjects a doctor who performs an abortion to as many as ninety-nine years in prison. The law has no exceptions for rape or incest. It redefines an “unborn child, child or person” as “[a] human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero …

Under Ten Eyes, Anthony Michael Kreis

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Carliss Chatman’s If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process and Citizenship brilliantly captures the moment America is in, where abortion rights hang in the balance as state legislators, like those in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and elsewhere clamor to embrace fetal personhood. But, as Professor Chatman illustrates, legislators have expressed no interest in the full logical extent of this policy or the rights that should attach to a fetus if their measures ultimately become effective. The article incisively demonstrates how fetal personhood is singularly focused on ending abortion in the United States and is gaining …

Personhood: Law, Common Sense, And Humane Opportunities, Helen M. Alvaré

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is pointless to approach Professor Chatman’s argument on its own terms (to wit, “tak[ing] our laws seriously,” or equal application across myriad legal categories of “full personhood” rights) because these terms are neither seriously intended nor legally comprehensible. Instead, her essay is intended to create the impression that legally protecting unborn human lives against abortion opens up a Pandora’s box of legal complications so “ridiculous” and “far-fetched” that we should rather just leave things where they are under the federal Constitution post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This impression, in turn, is a tool to …

Covid-19 And The Provisional Licensing Of Qualified Medical School Graduates As Physicians, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Each level of government has its own peculiar responsibilities to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The states are responsible for licensing physicians who can treat the affected people. Each year, a large number of American and foreign medical school graduates do not find a residency position in the United States. Medical school graduates who have passed the qualifying examination have acquired a considerable amount of education and training during their medical studies, far more than physician assistants, nurses, military corpsmen and medics, and civilian paramedics or emergency medical technicians. They comprise a pool of talent that could be immensely useful in …