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Full-Text Articles in Law
Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi
Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi
Political Science Honors Projects
What is the constitutional basis for women’s equality? Recently, scholars have suggested that as the right to privacy has floundered against the political undoing of women's access to abortion, equal protection arguments have grown stronger. This thesis investigates the feminist utility and limits of the equality and privacy arguments. Taking liberal feminism and feminist legal theory as analytical lenses, I offer interpretations of gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and marriage equality case law. By this framework, I argue that while an equality argument is less inherently oppressive towards women than the privacy doctrine, equality doctrine has been constructed thus far to …
Finding Autonomy: The Impact Of Judicial Discretion For Disabled Individuals In The American Guardianship System, Katherine Davis
Finding Autonomy: The Impact Of Judicial Discretion For Disabled Individuals In The American Guardianship System, Katherine Davis
Political Science Honors Projects
This study examines the conflict between guardianship and the American disability rights movement, specifically the shift from a medical to a capability model of disability. Legal guardianship presents judges with a dilemma of favoring individual autonomy or societal protection. This dichotomy manifests in the construction of state statutes where legislators can influence judicial discretion and sway decisions. Through analysis of state statutes, case law, and interviews with judges in Connecticut and Minnesota, this study found that higher levels of discretion do not necessarily translate to increased protection of individual autonomy or the use of alternatives to guardianship. The research points …