Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Equal Protection For The Child In The Womb, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

During 1971, the drive for liberalized abortion laws stalled after achieving rapid successes in the preceding four years. The law in most American states still allows abortion only where, it is necessary to save the life of the mother. Since 1967, however, sixteen states have relaxed their laws to provide that abortions may now be performed in varying situations where the life of the mother is not at stake. Some states, such as New York, allow abortions virtually on request. In other states, laws forbidding abortion have been declared unconstitutional by the courts. During 1971, no further liberalization was enacted …

Abortion And Legal Rationality, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

This article concerns the legitimacy of various legal schemes for dealing with abortion. Legitimacy in one sense is secured simply by complying with the formal criteria for valid law-making: enactment within power and in due form. But jurists have learned (or re-learned) that more can be said about legitimacy, without betraying the purity of their discipline by moralizing and advocacy. From this development in jurisprudential thought emerges the range of questions and criteria deployed in the present study.

Abortion, The Law And Human Life, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The issue in abortion "reform" is whether existing criminal sanctions against doctors and pregnant women should be abolished or liberalized. From one point of view this is the question presented in any discussion of the criminal law—whether people should be put in jail for doing something. From another viewpoint, it is the question presented in any discussion of existing law—whether the reformers, who presumably have the burden of proof, have made a case. The controversy will be especially interesting to Indiana lawyers, who last winter saw an abortion-reform proposal pass both houses of the General Assembly and then die (abort?) …

Medical And Dental X-Rays--A Time For Re-Evaluation And State Action, James H. Seckinger

Journal Articles

In 1956, the National Academy of Sciences in a report on "The Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation" warned the public of the serious consequences that may flow from any type of radiation exposure. The report set forth the relationship between low-level exposure, that type of exposure which is present in the medical and dental use of X-rays, and long-range biological effects. Because of the possibility of such long-range effects, the Academy recommended that the medical authorities take prompt action to eliminate all unnecessary radiation in the use of X-rays.

Despite the strong language used by the Academy, and the lapse …

A.I.D.- An Heir Of Controversy, Charles E. Rice

Journal Articles

What is this thing called artificial insemination? Is it a menace to society? Or is it a fantasy of little moment beyond the precincts of 1984 and the "Brave New World"? Or does the fact lie somewhere in between? Whatever your view, you can readily bolster your position by citing respectable authority. For example, a respected advocate declaims that, "Nothing in modem times has so seriously challenged the basic concept of our society founded as it is on the biological tripod of father, mother and child which we call the family unit." Oppositely, a competent man of medicine notes that, …