Law Commons^™

"The Birth Of Death": Stillborn Birth Certificates And The Problem For Law, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Stillbirth is a confounding event, a reproductive moment that at once combines birth and death. This Essay discusses the complications of this simultaneity as a social experience and as a matter of law. While traditionally, stillbirth didn't count for much on either score, this is no longer the case. Familiarity with fetal life through obstetric ultrasound has transformed stillborn children into participating members of their families long before birth, and this in turn has led to a novel demand on law.

Dissatisfied with the issuance of a stillborn death certificate, bereaved parents of stillborn babies have successfully lobbied state legislatures …

Death In Our Life, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

This is the text of the Annual Lecture of the Society for Applied Philosophy, delivered in Oxford on 22-5-12. I kept the talk style of the paper. It examines a central aspect of the relations between duration and quality of life by considering the moral right to voluntary euthanasia, and some aspects of the moral case for a legal right to euthanasia. Would widespread acceptance of a right to voluntary euthanasia lead to widespread changes in attitude to life and death? Many of its advocates deny that seeing it as a narrow right enabling people to avoid ending their life …