Law Commons^™

In The Right Direction, Family Diversity In The Inter-American System Of Human Rights, Macarena Sáez

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This Article argues that the Inter-American System of Human Rights has contributed to a family system that embraces gender equality and non-heterosexual and gender non-conforming families. It argues that the system had, from its inception, an expansive idea of the family that included associations outside marriage. This was the basis for a robust development of the concepts of equality and non-discrimination by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Although the IACtHR has only decided a handful of cases related to the non-heterosexual family, its rich case law on equality and the right to …

Why The Legal Strategy Of Exploiting Immigrant Families Should Worry Us All, Jamie Abrams

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This article applies a family law lens to explore the systemic and traumatic effects of modern laws and policies on immigrant families. A family law lens widens the scope of individuals harmed by recent immigration laws and policies to show why all families are affected and harmed by shifts in state power, state action, and state rhetoric. The family law lens reveals a worrisome shift in intentionality that has moved the state from a bystander to family-based immigration trauma to an incendiary agent perpetrating family trauma.

Modern immigration laws and policies are deploying legal and political strategies that intentionally sever …

"Everything You Need Is In Here": Missing Elements In A Trauma-Sensitive, Multiracial Framework For Foster Parentig, Binny Miller, Maya Coleman

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No abstract provided.

The Polarization Of Reproductive And Parental Decision-Making, Jamie Abrams

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Women’s abortion decision-making and parental decision-making in child rearing are constructed as polarized methods of decision-making. Women’s abortion decision-making is understood as myopic and individualistic. Parental decision-making is understood as sacrificial and selfless. This polarization leaves reproductive decision-making isolated, marginalized, and vulnerable while parental decision-making is essentialized, protected, and revered. Both framings are inaccurate and problematic. A unified family decision-making framework that aligns abortion decision-making and parental decision-making reveals that both forms of decision-making are more multi-dimensional, relational, and family-centered than currently understood. This article exposes the ground to be gained by crossing longstanding boundaries in family law and reproductive …

How Does A Radical Lesbian Feminist Who Just Knows How To Holler Somehow Become A Noted Legal Scholar, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

The Fact Of The Matter, David Spratt

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No abstract provided.

Minors, Parents, And Minor Parents, Maya Manian

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As numerous scholars have noted, the law takes a strikingly incoherent approach to adolescent reproduction. States overwhelmingly allow a teenage girl to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, all without notice to her parents, but require parental notice or consent for abortion. This Article argues that this oft-noted contradiction in the law on teenage reproductive decision-making is in fact not as contradictory as it first appears. A closer look at the law’s apparently conflicting approaches to teenage abortion and teenage childbirth exposes common ground that scholars …

Independence And Immigration, Amanda Frost

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No abstract provided.

Concord With Which Other Families: Marriage Equality, Family Demographics, And Race, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Transforming Family Law Through Same-Sex Marriage: Lessons From (And To) The Western World, Macarena Saez

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Same-sex marriage is a 21st century phenomenon. In less than 13 years more than 15 countries have amended their marriage laws to include same-sex couples. Some countries have made the change through political decisions but others have reached the change through adjudicative processes. A comparative analysis of decisions from the highest courts of countries or states granting marriage to same-sex couples demonstrates: 1. similar arguments are presented to these courts when making the case for and against same-sex marriage; 2. courts are using comparative law to justify their decisions on same-sex marriage; 3. the majority of courts in these countries …

The Contractualization Of Family Law In The United States, Fernanda Nicola, Adrienne Hunter Jules

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No abstract provided.

From Third Parties To Parents: The Case Of Lesbian Couples And Their Children, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Intimate Liability: Emotional Harm, Family Law, And Stereotyped Narratives In Interspousal Torts, Fernanda Nicola

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Tort liability expanded in the twentieth century, a shift scholars generally attribute to the reorganization of tort law around the fault principle. In privileging compensation and deterrence, this reconfiguration ended various restrictions on liability, long viewed as arbitrary, including limits to the recovery for emotional harm and interspousal immunities. Tort and family law scholars alike portray the end of such immunities as a milestone for gender equality. Their elimination enables spouses and partners to secure compensation for emotional and physical abuse arising in intimate relationships. Yet, tort law is not operating in this way. On the contrary, by endorsing a …

What Marriage Equality Arguments Portend For Domestic Partner Employee Benefits, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

A Supreme Court Ruling That's About Way More Than Preemption, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Functional Parenting And Dysfunctional Abortion Policy: Reforming Parental Involvement Legislation, Maya Manian

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Abortion-related parental involvement mandates raise important family law issues about the scope of parents’ power over their children’s intimate decisions. While there has been extensive scholarly attention paid to the problems with parental involvement laws, relatively little has been said about strategies for reforming these laws. This article suggests using insights from family law relating to functional parenthood and third party caregiving as a basis for crafting more capacious methods of ensuring adult guidance for teenage girls facing an unplanned pregnancy. Recent developments in family law bolster the case for reforming parental involvement legislation to allow teenagers to consult with …

Learning From The Master: Things Betty Thompson Taught Me, David Spratt

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No abstract provided.

Two Parts Of The Landscape Of Family In America: Maintaining Both Spousal And Domestic Partner Employee Benefits For Both Same-Sex And Different-Sex Couples, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Response: And Baby Makes How Many - Using In Re M.C. To Consider Parentage Of A Child Conceived Through Sexual Intercourse And Born To A Lesbian Couple, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Custody Rights Of Lesbian And Gay Parents Redux: The Irrelevance Of Constitutional Principles, Nancy Polikoff

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Disputes over custody and visitation can arise when a marriage ends and one parent comes out as gay or lesbian. the heterosexual parent may seek custody or may seek to restrict the activities of the gay or lesbian parent, or the presence of the parent's same-sex partner, during visitation. A gay or lesbian parent's assertion of constitutional rights has not been an effective response to such efforts. that is not likely to change. Advocates for gay and lesbian parents have argued forcefully for a nexus text, permitting consideration of a parent's sexual orientation only when there is evidence of an …

The New Illegitimacy: Winning Backward In The Protection Of The Children Of Lesbian Couples, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Marriage, Same-Sex Cohabitation, And Same-Sex Families Around The World: Why ‘Same’ Is So Different?, Macarena Saez

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This paper briefly explains the situation of same sex couples in countries that have opened marriage to individuals of the same sex, offers a summary and analysis of the status of same sex unions in several countries that have not opened marriage to same sex couples, and provides a comparative analysis of the most recurrent arguments used in the processes of recognition and denial of same sex unions in the countries reviewed.

Forty years ago, same sex couples were not legally accepted in any country. In the last thirty years, however, around 20% of the world has granted some rights …

The Collateral Consequences Of Masculinizing Violence, Jamie Abrams

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Before an enraged gunman fired thirty-six deadly shots into an exercise class filled with women, on August 4, 2009, in Pennsylvania, he blogged that his killing spree was the result of his failure to meet society’s expectations of him as a man. This violent act tragically affirms that hegemonic masculinity – a dominant form of masculinity whereby some types of men have power over women and over some other men – can directly cause violence against women and reveals both the underlying connection between masculinities scholarship and feminist scholarship and the value in exploring that linkage further in both theory …

The Dual Purposes Of The U Visa Thwarted In A Legislative Duel, Jamie Abrams

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Congress created the U visa non-immigrant classification to achieve the dual purposes of both strengthening law enforcement’s ability to pursue domestic violence cases and protecting victims. This article reveals how the gatekeeper function of the law enforcement certification in the U visa petition, as set out in the interim final regulations, undermines Congress’s dual purposes and thwarts the statutory framework entirely. The law enforcement certification provisions of the U visa interim final regulations irreparably shift considerable centralized power to law enforcement personnel, subjecting the certification process to inconsistent application and misapplication.

U Visas allow undocumented non-immigrants who are victims of …

Family Law Exceptionalism In Comparative Law, Fernanda Nicola

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Today, family law is, to a surprising degree, at the center of comparative law inquiries committed to legal unification. Comparative family law projects range from analyzing convergence and harmonization proposals in the West, to law and development schemes in the rest of the world. The most salient reforms of abortion, same-sex marriage, transsexual, and adoption rights are increasingly promoted at the transnational level through international human rights and antidiscrimination principles. Regional and international human rights tribunals in Europe and Latin America are called upon to interpret the right to family life, non-discrimination, and freedom of movement principles to redefine the …

A Mother Should Not Have To Adopt Her Own Child: Parentage Laws For Children Of Lesbian Couples In The Twenty-First Century, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Equality And Justice For Lesbian And Gay Families And Relationships, Nancy Polikoff

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In 1989, Tom Stoddard and Paula Ettelbrick, attorneys with the gay rights group Lambda Legal, published side-by-side opposing essays about whether marriage for same-sex couples should be a movement priority. Rutgers Law Review is publishing a 2009 symposium commemorating the 20th anniversary of these now-iconic essays. This article is part of that symposium. It places the Ettelbrick essay, and the groundbreaking case of Braschi v. Stahl Associates decided the same year, in the context of the gay rights movement's strong support of family diversity. It then critiques the contemporary right-wing marriage movement for blaming all social problems on family diversity/aka …

Law That Values All Families: Beyond (Straight And Gay) Marriage, Nancy Polikoff

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No abstract provided.

Multiple Families, Multiple Goals, Multiple Failures: The Need For “Limited Equalization” As A Theory Of Child Support, Adrienne Jennings Lockie

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Current child support laws are based on flawed assumptions about families that fail to reflect family complexity and the realities of parenting. Further, there has been little reevaluation of the stated goals of child support law since they were first implemented thirty years ago. The stated goals — fiscal savings, children’s economic well-being, and parental involvement — have not been achieved and are increasingly unlikely to be achieved because they ignore the way that children in multiple families — families in which at least one parent has had another child with a different partner —compete for the limited resources of …

View From The Ivory Tower: Musings Of A Former Family Lawyer, David Spratt

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No abstract provided.