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Full-Text Articles in Medical Jurisprudence

The Right To Die In America: Sloganeering From Quinlan And Cruzan To Quill And Kevorkian, George J. Annas Jan 1996

The Right To Die In America: Sloganeering From Quinlan And Cruzan To Quill And Kevorkian, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The topic of my talk is different from those you have been dealing with in this conference in one critical aspect-it's one that all of us are going to confront-we're all going to die. And death is not a subject anyone can escape because it has both professional implications-what the law should be, how we should decide disputes when they arise, and practical ones-how we should order our own lives, and what we should do to try to make our death easier if not on ourselves, at least on our loved ones.


Facilitating Choice: Judging The Physician's Role In Abortion And Suicide, George J. Annas Jan 1996

Facilitating Choice: Judging The Physician's Role In Abortion And Suicide, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

When I was invited to give this talk I thought, "I'll just give my standard slide show on death in America." I thought I would just talk about the right to die, something I can do in my sleep, and everybody would be happy. And you probably would, since it's a pretty good speech. I am going to give it at a Pennsylvania Judges Conference in a couple of weeks, and they will like it. But it is not very challenging, either for me or for you. So, what I want to explore with you today is how judges have …


Medicine And Human Rights: Reflections On The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Doctors’ Trial, George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin Jan 1996

Medicine And Human Rights: Reflections On The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Doctors’ Trial, George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin

Faculty Scholarship

1996 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the commencement of the trial of Nazi physicians at Nuremberg, a trial that has been variously designated as the "Doctors' Trial" and the "Medical Case." In addition to documenting atrocities committed by physicians and scientists during WWII, the most significant contribution of the trial has come to be known as the "Nuremberg Code," a judicial codification of 10 prerequisites for the moral and legal use of human beings in experiments. Anniversaries provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon the past, but they also ena ble us to renew our efforts to plan for …


Aids Phobia, Public Health Warnings, And Lawsuits: Deterring Harm Or Rewarding Ignorance?, Wendy K. Mariner Nov 1995

Aids Phobia, Public Health Warnings, And Lawsuits: Deterring Harm Or Rewarding Ignorance?, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Courts in more than a dozen states have decided cases in which a person has claimed money damages for his or her fear of getting acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Although most courts have rejected such claims in the absence of actual exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), their reasoning has varied slightly from state to state. This article argues that negligence law should not permit people who are HIV negative to recover damages for an unfounded fear of AIDS. Public health statements intended to educate the public about preventing HIV transmission may have encouraged some fear-of-AIDS lawsuits against health …


Patients' Rights After Health Care Reform: Who Decides What Is Medically Necessary?, Wendy K. Mariner Sep 1994

Patients' Rights After Health Care Reform: Who Decides What Is Medically Necessary?, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

President Clinton's Health Security Act entitles individuals not to unlimited health care, but to a package of defined insurance benefits with specific exclusions and limitations. Like virtually all reform proposals, it would limit covered benefits to services that are medically necessary. If health reform is to control costs, not all medically necessary care can be covered. In the absence of a generally accepted definition of medical necessity, many services will not be guaranteed to all patients unless they are explicitly covered in the federal legislation or regulations. Without a federal definition of medical necessity or regulations listing covered services, health …


Risky Business: Setting Public Health Policy For Hiv-Infected Health Care Professionals, Leonard H. Glantz, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas Jan 1992

Risky Business: Setting Public Health Policy For Hiv-Infected Health Care Professionals, Leonard H. Glantz, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

An analysis of the restrictive proposals provoked by the case of Kimberly Bergalis and four other patients apparently infected with HIV during the course of dental treatment reveals that they resulted from an inability to evaluate appropriately the infinitesimal risk of HIV transmission from practitioner to patient. The proposals also resulted from an effort to create risk prevention policy without appreciating the distinction between regulating things or procedures, which have no human rights, and regulating people, who have rights that should not be infringed without serious justification. This analysis demonstrates that the proposed restrictive policies are not justified because they …


Pregnancy, Drugs, And The Perils Of Prosecution, Wendy K. Mariner, Leonard H. Glantz, George J. Annas Jan 1990

Pregnancy, Drugs, And The Perils Of Prosecution, Wendy K. Mariner, Leonard H. Glantz, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In the war on drugs an offensive has been launched against pregnant women who use drugs. Over the past four years, prosecuting attorneys have been indicting women who use drugs while pregnant. In South Carolina alone, eighteen women who allegedly took drugs during pregnancy were indicted last summer for criminal neglect of a child or distribution of drugs to a minor.' In the only successful prosecution so far, Jennifer Johnson was convicted in Florida for delivering illegal drugs to a minor via the umbilical cord in the moment after her child was born and before the cord was clamped.2 …


Death And The Magic Machine: Informed Consent To The Artificial Heart, George J. Annas Jan 1987

Death And The Magic Machine: Informed Consent To The Artificial Heart, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Jay Katz introduces his remarkable and insightful book, The Silent World of Doctor and Patient, by recounting a portion of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. He describes an encounter between a patient, Oleg Kostoglotov, and his doctor, Dr. Ludmilla Afanasyevna. The doctor wanted to use experimental hormone treatment, but the patient refused. Katz argues that what made conversation impossible between them was the patient's undisclosed intention of leaving the hospital to treat himself with "a secret medicine, a mandrake root from Issyk Kul." He could not trust the doctor with this information because the doctor would make the decision for the patient …


Law And Medicine: Myths And Realities In The Medical School Classroom, George J. Annas Jan 1975

Law And Medicine: Myths And Realities In The Medical School Classroom, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The goal of legal education in a nutshell is to get the student to "think like a lawyer." The goal of medicolegal courses in medical schools, on the other hand, has often seemed to be to get the medical student to think bad things about lawyers. While the total solution to the legendary distrust between these two professions may not be an understanding of methodology, this article will suggest that one way to increase cooperation between the professions is to teach law in medical schools in a way that emphasizes methods of approaching problems and which seeks to dispel the …


Psychosurgery: The Law's Response, George J. Annas, Leonard H. Glantz Jan 1974

Psychosurgery: The Law's Response, George J. Annas, Leonard H. Glantz

Faculty Scholarship

Participants in the psychosurgery controversy generally espouse one of three competing points of view. First, there are the surgeons who argue that psychosurgical procedures have developed beyond the experimental stage to the point where they may be considered therapeutic for certain types of patients. Second, there are those who support further research in the area in the hope of developing genuinely therapeutic procedures, but who recognize the importance of safeguarding against potential abuses in the course of this development. Finally, there are the anti-psychosurgeons, who argue for the total prohibition of psychosurgery on ethical, spiritual, or political grounds independent of …