Law Commons^™

The New Maternity, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

Constitutional law has long assumed that mothers andfathers are fundamentally different. Maternity, that law posits, is certain, obvious, and monolithic - consolidated in an easily identifiable person who is at once a biological, social, and legal parent. Paternity, in contrast, is construed as uncertain, nonobvious, relative, and often unclear. Over time, constitutional law has grown more insistent about the obviousness of motherhood. It also has cemented its idea of maternity into a fundamental principle of sex equality law that applies in settings - like transgender rights - that have nothing to do with certain mothers and uncertain fathers.

Constitutional law's …

The Story Of Parenthood, Courtney Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Loving Retroactivity, Charles W. "Rocky" Rhodes

Florida State University Law Review

Pending actions across the nation highlight the ongoing struggle between adjudicative retroactivity and marital equality. The Supreme Court's constitutional decisions overruling prior precedents or applying new legal rules to the parties retroactively govern all pending and future adjudicative proceedings on direct review, even if the underlying operative events occurred under a prior legal framework. But this understanding of the temporal boundaries of legal change is being challenged after the Supreme Court's holding in Obergefell v. Hodges that laws excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples are invalid. The retroactive application of Obergefell …

After Sex, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

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

Florida State University Law Review

Women’s abortion and parental decision-making in child rearing are constructed as polarized methods of decision-making in law, politics, and society. 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 …

Reproduction Reconceived, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

On Marriage Equality And Transformation Through Preservation, Courtney Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

A Test To Identify And Remedy Anti-Gay Bias In Child Custody Decisions After Obergefell, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Mark Joseph Stern

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Trauma-Informed Co-Parenting: How A Shift In Compulsory Divorce Education To Reflect New Brain Development Research Can Promote Both Parents' And Childrens' Best Interests, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Anthony J. Ferraro, Lisa S. Panisch, Mallory Lucier-Greer

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Improving The Medical Services System's Response To Domestic Violence, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Elizabeth Donnelly, Rebecca Melvin

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Oedipus Hex: Regulating Family After Marriage Equality, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

Now that national marriage equality for same-sex couples has become the law of the land, commentators are turning their attention from the relationships into which some gays and lesbians enter to the mechanisms on which they — and many others — rely in order to reproduce. Even as one culture war makes way for another, however, there is something that binds them: a desire to establish the family. This Article focuses on a problematic manifestation of that desire: the incest prevention justification. The incest prevention justification posits that the law ought to regulate alternative reproduction in order to minimize the …

"Law And Justice Are Not Always The Same": Creating Community-Based Justice Forums For People Subjected To Intimate Partner Abuse, Leigh Goodmark

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Differential Response: A Dangerous Experiment In Child Welfare, Elizabeth Bartholet

Florida State University Law Review

Differential Response represents the most important child welfare initiative of the day, with Differential Response programs rapidly expanding throughout the country. It is designed to radically change our child welfare system, diverting the great majority of Child Protective Services cases to an entirely voluntary system. This Article describes the serious risks Differential Response poses for children and the flawed research being used to promote it as “evidence based.” It puts the Differential Response movement in historical context as one of a series of extreme family preservation movements supported by a corrupt merger of advocacy with research. It argues for reform …

Non-Marital Families And (Or After?) Marriage Equality, Deborah A. Widniss

Florida State University Law Review

If, as is widely expected, the Supreme Court soon holds that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, it is almost certain that the decision will rely heavily on the Court’s reasoning in United States v. Windsor. I strongly support marriage equality. However, a decision that amplifies Windsor’s conception of the harm caused by exclusionary marriage rules could set back efforts to secure legal recognition of, and respect for, non-marital families. That is, Windsor rectified a deep inequality in the law—that same-sex marriages were categorically denied federal recognition—but in so doing it embraced a traditional understanding of marriage as superior to …

Marital Contracting In A Post-Windsor World, Martha M. Ertman

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Origin Of Parental Rights: Labor, Intent, And Fathers, Dara E. Purvis

Florida State University Law Review

Most theories of parentage fail to explain the genesis of the right to parent—for example, why does a biological relationship generate parental rights? This Article shows that the law of parental rights mirrors theories of acquiring property, and that the law has shifted over time, from favoring a property right based in genetics to a Lockean theory of property rights earned through labor. The growth of Lockean labor-based theories is epitomized in reforms to parentage laws that incorporate functional theories of parenting, meaning that adults who perform caretaking work that creates a significant relationship with children are recognized as legal …

The Case For Mandatory Training On Screening For Domestic Violence In The Wake Of The Affordable Care Act, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Unheard Voices Of Domestic Violence Victims: A Call To Remedy Physician Neglect, Nat Stern, Karen Oehme, Ember Urbach

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

An Incomplete Revolution: Reexaming The Law, History, And Politics Of Marital Property, Mary Ziegler

Scholarly Publications

Did the divorce revolution betray the interests of American women? While there has been considerable disagreement about the impact of divorce reform on women’s standard of living, many agree that judicial practices involving the division of marital property and the allocation of alimony have systematically disadvantaged women. Most often, in the courts and the academy, commentators see these practices as evidence of the need for family law reform.

These conclusions rely on a shared account of the history of divorce reform. According to this account, the transformation of divorce law in the 1970s and 1980s was a “silent revolution,” a …

Regulating At The Margins: Non-Traditional Kinship And The Legal Regulation Of Intimate And Family Life, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

This Article offers a new theory of how the law attempts to control intimate and family life and uses that theory to argue why certain laws might be unconstitutional. Specifically, it contends that by regulating non-traditional relationships and practices that receive little or no constitutional protection— same-sex relationships, domestic partnerships, de facto parenthood, and nonsexual procreation—the law is able to express its normative ideals about all marriage, parenthood, and procreation. By regulating non-traditional kinship, then, the law can be aspirational in a way that the Constitution would ordinarily prohibit and can attempt to channel all of us in ways that …

(Still) Not Fit To Be Named: Moving Beyond Race To Explain Why 'Separate' Nomenclature For Gay And Straight Relationships Will Never Be 'Equal', Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Celebrating The Differences That Could Make A Difference: United States V. Virginia And A New Vision Of Sexual Equality, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Rhetorical Atavism And The Narrative Of Progress In The Debate Over Marriage Equality, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Genuine Article: A Subversive Economic Perspective On The Law's Procreationist Vision Of Marriage, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Temporally Extended Family & Self-Control: An Essay For Lee E. Teitelbaum, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Marriage, Slippery Slope Rhetoric, And The Politics Of Disgust: A Critical Perspective On Contemporary Family Discourse And The Incest Taboo, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Publicity Rights As Moral Rights, David Landau, David Westfall

Scholarly Publications

Recent legal history has witnessed the creation of a large number of new forms of property. Consequently, judges and legislators have generally been willing to imbue these new forms of property with all or most of the attributes of traditional property. In this article we try to explain this trend by examining one important new kind of property, the publicity right. Publicity rights initially emerged in response to functionalist considerations: transferable rights were needed to keep pace with commercial custom. As time went on, courts began to expand the attributes of the right to new frontiers, such as inheritability. In …

Developments In Law And Policy: Emerging Issues In Family Law, Michael T. Morley, Richard Albert, Jennie L. Kneedler, Chrystiane Pereira

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Establishing The Biological Rights Doctrine To Protect Unwed Fathers In Contested Adoptions, Toni L. Craig

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

For Better Or Worse: A Critical Analysis Of Florida's Defense Of Marriage Act, Michael J. Kanotz

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.