Law Commons^™

Foster Care Safety And The Kinship Cue Of Attitude Similarity, David J. Herring

Articles

This article brings behavioral biology research on attitude similarity as a kinship cue to bear on the laws, policies, and practices surrounding the placement of children in foster care. The basic logic of the article relies on the nature and power of kinship cues. Individuals perceive others as kin through fallible, often unconscious mechanisms. Because these mechanisms are fallible, individuals may come to believe that unrelated persons are kin.

Once a cue gives rise to the perception of kinship, the individual who acquires this perception about another person is more likely to treat that other person favorably, providing important benefits …

Forces Shaping The Law Of Cohabitation Of Opposite Sex Couples, Margaret Mahoney

Articles

Concerns about the institution of marriage have worked to slow the development of a legal status for unmarried, opposite sex couples in the United States. Many forces have shaped the development of law in this field. First, historically, in our Anglo-American tradition, non-marrital cohabitation was viewed as immoral and socially unacceptable. This viewpoint found expression, for example, in widely enacted state criminal cohabitation statutes.

The first Part of this Article focuses on the criminal regulation of unmarried cohabitation, highlighting its present day ramifications for unmarried couples. Notably, state lawmakers have repealed the criminal cohabitation statutes in all but a handful …

Dimensions Of Equality In Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Mary Crossley

Articles

Although concerns about individual liberty and the nature and extent of reproductive freedom have tended to dominate discussions regarding the proliferation of and access to reproductive technologies, questions about the implications of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) for equality have also arisen. Despite the high number of invocations of equality in the literature regarding ARTs, to date little effort has been made to comprehensively examine the implications of ARTs for equality. This short Article seeks to highlight the variety of equality issues that ARTs present and to develop a framework for classifying different types of equality issues. Specifically, I suggest that …

Foster Care Placement: Reducing The Risk Of Sibling Incest, David J. Herring

Articles

The Westermarck theory maintains that incest avoidance arises from the physical proximity of siblings during a critical period of early childhood. This proximity gives rise to an inhibiting effect on post childhood sexual interest. Two recent studies of sibling relationships have verified and refined the Westermarck theory, indicating that the critical period extends through the first four years of childhood.

The theory and the studies have implications for child welfare laws, policies and practices surrounding the placement of siblings in foster care. Namely, the findings provide powerful reasons for placing siblings together during the critical period in order to minimize …

Child Placement Decisions: The Relevance Of Facial Resemblance And Biological Relationships, David J. Herring

Articles

This article discusses two studies of evolution and human behavior addressing child-adult relationships and explores implications for policies and practices surrounding placement of children in foster homes. The first study indicates that men favor children whose facial features resemble their own facial features. This study may justify public child welfare decisionmakers in considering facial resemblance as they attempt to place children in safe foster homes.

The second study indicates that parents are likely to invest more in children who are biologically related to them, thus enhancing their long term well-being. Among other implications, this study may justify public child welfare …

Troxel And The Rhetoric Of Associational Respect, David J. Herring

Articles

A recent decision by the United States Supreme Court has brought into sharp focus important questions about the nature and extent of parents' prerogatives to dictate how their children are raised. In the case of Troxel v. Granville, the Court addressed a Washington third-party visitation statute that permitted "any person" to petition for visitation with a child. Under the statute, a petitioner had to allege that visitation would serve the child's best interest. A judge hearing such a petition could order visitation whenever he or she found that such visitation may serve the child's best interest.

The United States …

Of Diagnoses And Discrimination: Discriminatory Nontreatment Of Infants With Hiv Infection, Mary Crossley

Articles

Evidence of physician attitudes favoring the withholding of needed medical treatment from infants infected with HIV compels a reassessment of the applicability and adequacy of existing law in dealing with selective nontreatment. Although we can hope to have learned some lessons from the Baby Doe controversy of the mid-1980s, whether the legislation emerging from that controversy, the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, has ever adequately dealt with the problem of nontreatment remains far from clear. Today, the medical and social characteristics of most infants infected with HIV introduce new variables into our assessment of that legislation. At stake are the …

Sex, Society And Sophistry, Roslyn M. Litman, Claire B. Mcdermott

Scholarship

This note proposes a reconsideration of the soundness of the theories relied upon by the courts m denying the right of a wife to sue for loss of consortium caused by defendant's negligent conduct toward the husband. While there may be other solutions to the problems involved in actions concerning marital rights, it is intended here only to emphasize the con­sistently poor reasoning prevalent m the courts today upon which they base their dental to the wife.