Law Commons^™

An Alternative To Medical Assistance In Dying? The Legal Status Of Voluntary Stopping Eating And Drinking (Vsed), Jocelyn Downie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has received considerable attention from many in the field of bioethics. Philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and clinicians of all sorts have engaged with many challenging aspects of this issue. Public debate, public policy, and the law have been enhanced by the varied disciplinary analyses. With the legalization of MAiD in Canada, some attention is now being turned to issues that have historically been overshadowed by the debate about whether to permit MAiD. One such issue is voluntary stopping eating and drinking (VSED) as an alternative to MAiD. In this paper, I will apply a legal lens …

Can Rationing Through Inconvenience Be Ethical?, Nir Eyal, Paul Romain, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis and a normative assessment of rationing through inconvenience as a form of rationing. By “rationing through inconvenience” in the health sphere, we refer to a non-financial burden (the inconvenience) that is either intended to cause or has the effect of causing patients or clinicians to choose an option for health‐related consumption that is preferred by the health system for its fairness, efficiency, or other distributive desiderata beyond assisting the immediate patient. We argue that under certain conditions, rationing through inconvenience may turn out to serve as a legitimate and, compared to direct …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2017

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Summer 2017

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Ethical License, Christi Guerrini, Margaret Curnette, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott

Other Publications

The Broad Institute's recent licensing of its gene editing patent portfolio demonstrates how licenses can be used to restrict controversial applications of emerging technologies while society deliberates their implications.

Frontiers In Precision Medicine Ii: Cancer, Big Data And The Public, Emily Coonrod, Jorge L. Contreras, Willard Dere, Jeffrey Botkin, Leslie Francis, Jim Tabery

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Precision medicine is being developed within a complex landscape of public policy, science, economics, law, and regulation. In these and other policy areas, the goal of developing individually-tailored therapies poses novel challenges for health care research, delivery and policy. In this symposium, a range of experts in genetics, medicine, bioinformatics, intellectual property, health economics and bioethics identified and discussed many of the pressing questions raised by the development and practice of precision medicine. These and other issues will need to be taken into account as precision medicine moves ahead and becomes the standard of medical practice and care in the …

Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

The conception of Frankenstein’s monster bridges the ever-narrowing divide between man and machine. Long before Congress codified Section 33(a) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”), Mary Shelley’s vague description of the monster’s creation has left people wondering: what defines a human organism? Through an analysis of patent law and scientific progress in the development of artificial organ systems, this paper explores the boundaries of patentable subject matter in the United States and attempts to clarify Congress’s determination that “no patent may issue on a claim directed to or encompassing a human organism.” Though patent law should incentivize development of artificial …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Is The United States Prepared For A Major Zika Virus Outbreak?, Lawrence O. Gostin, James G. Hodge Jr.

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Zika virus has emerged as a global public health crisis with active transmission in the Americas and Caribbean. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and recently WHO reported there is a scientific consensus that Zika is a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) activated its emergency operations center at its highest capacity. President Obama requested $1.86 billion in emergency funding. Shamefully, Congress has yet to appropriate the funding needed for Zika preparedness, and the President has had to reallocate Ebola …

Heredity In The Epigenetic Era: Are We Facing A Politics Of Reproductive Obligations?, Michael J. Crawford

Biological Sciences Publications

Recent research in the emerging field of epigenetics has implications with the potential to re-ignite acrimony in the discourse of reproductive rights, medical ethics, and the role of the state in our homes and in our lives. For scientists, epigenetics has profoundly realigned our understanding of heredity: epigenetics provides a mechanism through which the environmental challenges met in one generation can be inscribed and transmitted to future offspring. Although both genetic parents have the potential to transmit heritable epigenetic changes to their offspring, mothers have a particularly potent effect because nutrition in the uterine environment can exert a supplemental effect …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Classification Standards For Health Information: Ethical And Practical Approaches, Craig Konnoth

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Secondary health information research requires vast quantities of data in order to make clinical and health delivery breakthroughs. Restrictive policies that limit the use of such information threaten to stymie this research. While the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the new Common Rule permits patients to provide broad consent for the use of their information for research, that policy offers insufficient flexibility. This Article suggests a flexible consenting system that allows patients to consent to a range of privacy risks. The details of the system will be fleshed out in future work.

Reconsidering Constitutional Protection For Health Information Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

What kinds of health information should be reported to government for civil purposes? Several competing trends encourage efforts to reassess the scope of constitutional protection for health information: the social and commercial value of health information; the amount of data held by third parties, from health care providers to internet servers; critiques of the third party doctrine exception to Fourth Amendment protection; and concerns about the loss of privacy. This article describes a variety of civil purposes for which health information is collected today. A close analysis of cases applying the third party doctrine, administrative search principles, and the special …

The House Edge: On Gambling And Professional Discipline, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

On March 26, 2014, the Iowa Supreme Court revoked the license to practice law of Cedar Rapids attorney Susan Hense. Admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1996, Hense subsequently misappropriated $837,000 in client trust funds to feed her addiction to casino gambling. This Article assesses how attorneys like Hense who are addicted to gambling are treated in professional disciplinary actions, including license suspension, revocation, and reinstatement proceedings. Themes that emerge include public misunderstanding of gambling disorder, stigma against individuals with gambling disorder, statutory recognition of substance addictions but not behavioral addictions, and mandatory attendance at religion based fellowship meetings as …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2016

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Health Care Rationing: An Introduction, By Greg Bognar And Iwao Hirose, Alanna Mcgovern

Journal of Aging, Longevity, Law, and Policy

No abstract provided.

Shared Responsibility Regulation Model For Cross-Border Reproductive Transactions, Sharon Bassan

Michigan Journal of International Law

The term “cross-border reproductive transactions” refers to the movement of tens of thousands of people, who travel from one country to purchase reproductive services from suppliers in other countries, in order to have a child.2 It is estimated that between eleven and fourteen thousand patients in Europe alone engage in this practice annually.3 Historically, the phrase ‘medical tourism’ used to refer to the travel of patients from less-affluent countries seeking better healthcare in countries with superior healthcare standards. Today, the journey is just as likely to flow in the opposite direction, as patients travel from industrialized to less affluent countries …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2015

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Summer 2015

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Solving The Problem Of Organ Donation Shortage, Samuel Hodge, Nicole Saitta-Gill

Samuel D. Hodge Jr.

Organ donation, a medically perfected procedure, affords a second chance at life for many people. Unfortunately, organ transplantation demonstrates the stark reality of supply and demand. Thousands of individuals are added to the transplant list each day but many more die during the same time frame waiting for new organs. The solution to this dilemma seems simple: increase the supply. This article will discuss several ways to achieve this goal. First, through the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, which allows for HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive transplants, more transplantable organs will hopefully be available in the future. Second, the supply of organs may increase …

Anticipating Hiv Vaccines: Sketching An Agenda For Public Health Ethics And Policy In The United States, James M. Dubois, Amanda Hine, Michele Kennett, Kayla Kostelecky, Joseph Norris, Rachel Presti, Kathryn Raliski, Jessi Roach, Adam Ruggles

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2015

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

What Patients With Disabilities Teach Us About The Everyday Ethics Of Health Care, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

In Healers: Extraordinary Clinicians at Work, by David Schenck and Dr. Larry Churchill, and in What PatientsTeach: The Everyday Ethics of Health Care, their follow-up with Joseph Fanning, the authors look at theeveryday experience of health care and the relationships that shape it. This article expands upon that inquiry by exploring the experiences and challenges of patients with disabilities and by exploring what patients withdisabilities can teach us about the everyday ethics of health care.

The authors of What Patients Teach provide a framework in which to focus on the everyday experience ofhealth care from the perspective of patients. This …

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2014

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Spring 2014

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Ebola And Bioterrorism, Joshua P. Monroe

Joshua P Monroe

This paper will be a comparison of the United States government’s reaction to the recent outbreak of Ebola and will compare this response with the potential response by the United States government toward an act of biological or chemical warfare. The paper will analyze these responses from a cultural, political, legal, and policy standpoint

Setting The Stage: Enhancing Understanding Of Bioethical Challenges With Theatre, Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Theatre provides a dynamic platform to reflect upon the ethical, legal, and social implications of medical innovations and the powerful impact on personal and professional relationships. This article explores the last four to five decades of theatre, which coincide with the evolution of the formal discipline of bioethics and the field of medical humanities, to aid in the understanding of the bioethical challenges we face today and to place them in an historical and societal context. Four plays are discussed that reflect the ethical and legal context of their eras and reveal significant ethical challenges for us to consider.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Winter 2014

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Aging Populations And Physician Aid In Dying: The Evolution Of State Government Policy, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

Professor David Orentlicher explores the evolution of physician assisted suicide from illegal taboo to the passage of Death with Dignity legislation and caselaw.

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter, Fall 2013

Mid-Atlantic Ethics Committee Newsletter

No abstract provided.