Law Commons^™

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2021

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

How Analogizing Socio-Legal Responses To Organ Transplantation Can Further The Legalization Of Reproductive Genetic Innovation, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

The Nobel Foundation emphasized the significance of genetic innovation to society, science, and medicine by awarding the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to “the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors.” This Article focuses on “reproductive genetic innovation,” a term that includes cytoplasmic transfer, mitochondrial transfer, and germline or heritable gene editing techniques that are all categorized as “experimental” in the United States. These techniques all use in vitro fertilization, a legal and widely available practice. Yet reproductive genetic innovation has resulted in controversy and numerous barriers including a recurring federal budget rider, threats of federal enforcement action, and the unavailability of federal funding. …

Lessons Learned From The Hiv/Aids Pandemic And Access To Medicines For Covid-19 Treatment, Thalia Le

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

There is an imminent need to address the healthcare disparities in accessing all COVID-19 medicinal products in developing countries. While logistical issues like inadequate production facilities such as the lack of vaccines administration capacity, storage issues, gap between supply and demand as well as vaccine hesitancy can certainly play a part in impeding COVID19 medicines distribution, patent monopolies and intellectual property protection laws further exacerbated the problem, especially when vaccines were at its early stages of authorization. Historical and contemporary case studies of efforts to challenge patents on HIV AVRs treatment provide a useful lens through which we may glean …

Corruption In Capsules: How It Is Legal For Companies To Put Harmful Ingredients In Vitamins And Dietary Supplements, Emily Leggiero

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The vitamin and supplement industry has increased exponentially in profits as well as potential products on the market since the turn of the century. However, these products are not regulated, nor do they undergo any premarket clinical research or testing. Public health is compromised by vitamins and supplements that are available for American consumption that is disproportionately unregulated to their chemically similar counterparts. This wicked problem is facilitated through the combination of historical legislative definitions that has since been distorted for corrupt administrative gain through the allotment of corporate expenditures. Company disbursements are made to the same policymakers that create …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2021

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Public Health And History: Vaccination Regulation In The Northeastern States, Kate Campbell

Student Research

In 1905 Henning Jacobson went before the United States Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts and argued that his constitutional right to liberty was infringed upon when compulsory vaccination laws were introduced. When mandatory vaccination laws were introduced in Cambridge, Massachusetts there was another deadly smallpox epidemic racing through the northeastern states. Government officials believed that the best way to control the disease and ultimately stop the spread was through government intervention. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that as a citizen of the United States it is often times necessary to give up some forms of liberty in order to …

A Literary Analysis Of The Origin Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Its Advancements, Philosophical, Ethical, Sociocultural, And Political Aspects; An Investigation Of The Underlying Attributes That Affect One’S Views On Hesc Research To Resolve Turkey And Brazil’S Hesc Policy, Religious, And Cultural Conflicts, Haleema Shamsuddin

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are cells derived from 5-day human embryos and are self-renewing cell lines that change into any type of cell in the body, a trait called pluripotency. hESCs have almost unlimited clinical and medical research potential. Despite the great therapeutic promise of hESC research, it comes with a controversial ethical debate due to its involvement with the destruction of the human embryo. The central argument revolves around the question of whether or not these human embryos should be ascribed equal moral status to fully developed humans. This thesis aims to analyze the origin and advancements of …

Getting Real: The Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network’S Covid‑19 Working Group Debriefs Lessons Learned, Norton Elson, Howard Gwon, Diane Hoffmann, Adam M. Kelmenson, Ahmed Khan, Joanne F. Kraus, Casmir C. Onyegwara, Gail Povar, Fatima Sheikh, Anita J. Tarzian

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How To End Our Stories: A Study Of The Perspectives Of Seniors On Dementia And Decision-Making, James Toomey

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Because dementia can cause individuals to make decisions that they otherwise would not, the law needs a mechanism to determine which decisions are entitled to the respect of the legal system and which may be overridden by others. In the philosophical literature, three primary theories for how to make this determination have been offered. First, "Cognitivism" posits that whether a decision should be recognized is a function of the mechanical functioning of the individual's brain at the time the decision is made. Second, "Essentialism" holds that decisions should be recognized so long as they are consistent with the cluster of …

Adolescent Medical Decisionmaking Rights: Reconciling Medicine And Law, Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Philip M. Rosoff

Faculty Scholarship

Dennis Lindberg came into his aunt’s care when he was in the 4th grade because his parents struggled with drug addiction and could not provide for him. At thirteen, he was baptized in his aunt’s faith as a Jehovah’s Witness. Just days after he turned fourteen, on November 6, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The prognosis was that Dennis had a 75% chance of cure with standard oncology treatment. Consistent with the requirements of his new faith, however, Dennis told his doctors, “I do not want to be treated if the requirement is that I would have to …

Is Germline Gene Editing Exceptional?, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

Advances in gene editing have recently received significant scientific and media attention. Gene editing, especially CRISPR-Cas9, has revived multiple longstanding ethical debates, including debates related to parental autonomy, health disparities, disability perspectives, and racial and economic inequalities. Germline, or heritable, gene editing generates several newer, neglected bioethical debates, including those about the shared human germline and whether there is a "line" that humans should not cross.

This Article addresses several interrelated ethical and legal questions related to germline gene editing. Those questions address why, if at all, germline gene editing needs to be regulated and, if germline gene editing needs …

"As Long As I'M Me": From Personhood To Personal Identity In Dementia And Decision-Making, James Toomey

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

As people, especially older people, begin to develop dementia, we confront ethical questions about when and how to intervene in their increasingly compromised decision-making. The prevailing approach in philosophically-inclined bioethics to tackling this challenge has been to develop theories of “decision-making capacity” based on the same characteristics that entitle the decisions of moral persons to respect in general. This Article argues that this way of thinking about the problem has missed the point. Because the disposition of property is an identity-dependent right, what matters in dementia and decision-making is an individual’s personal identity with their prior self, not their moral …

Second-Trimester Abortion Dangertalk, Greer Donley, Jill Wieber Lens

Articles

Abortion rights are more vulnerable now than they have been in decades. This Article focuses specifically on the most assailable subset of those rights: the right to a pre-viability, second-trimester abortion. Building on Carhart v. Gonzales, where the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a safe and effective second-trimester abortion procedure, states have passed new second-trimester abortion restrictions that rely heavily on the woman-protective rationale—the idea that the restrictions will benefit women. These newer second-trimester abortion restrictions include bans on the Dilation & Evacuation (D&E) procedure, bans on disability-selective abortions, and mandatory perinatal hospice and palliative care counseling …