Tag Archives: Topic: Bioethics

Newsweek: “Gosling’s admission and his ensuing arrest was certainly shocking. But it also confirmed what assisted-suicide experts already knew: legal issues of hastening death have long plagued AIDS patients and their doctors. ‘Certainly, we know it’s a community where this type of bootleg assisted suicide occurred throughout the 1990s,’ says Ian Dowbiggin, the author of A Concise History of Euthanasia and an expert on the right-to-die movement. ‘This specific example of assisted suicide, I don’t know how common it is, but it is likely more common in this particular community than elsewhere.’”

Gilbert Meilaender writes at The New Atlantis: “From January 16, 2002, to June 11, 2009, I served on the President’s Council on Bioethics . . . We all have a stake, therefore, in how public bioethical debate is structured. Indeed, it may be that we should care more about how it is structured than about what is decided on any given occasion . . . ”

Professor Meilaender is also the author of the most recent volume in our New Atlantis Books series — Neither Beast nor God: The Dignity of the Human Person.

Associated Press: “Now, more women are being tested as part of routine prenatal care, and many end pregnancies when diseases are found. One study in California found that prenatal screening reduced by half the number of babies born with the severest form of cystic fibrosis because many parents chose abortion.”

Catholic Culture: “Pope Benedict stressed that the dignity of the person must be anchored in natural law, which is not subject to change. He noted that ‘history has shown how dangerous and damaging a state can be when it proceeds to make laws that touch the person and society, while itself claiming to be the source and principle of ethics.’”

Associated Press: “A state House panel has approved legislation that further regulates the practice of abortion in the state.”

UPI: “The online survey found 42 percent of respondents favored legalizing euthanasia while 36 percent opposed its legalization, results released by Angus Reid from New York Wednesday showed.”

Malathy Iyer writing in the Times of India: Dr Anjali Malpani, an infertility specialist who treated Bohanon, now performs about three to four embryo adoptions a month as opposed to the random annual procedure, which was the case until a few years back. Says Dr Malpani, ‘With availability of better infertility treatment techniques, embryo adoption/donation is becoming popular of late across the world.’ In the US alone, where embryo adoption is about a decade old, over 1,000 babies have been born using this method.

ABC News: “Non-commercial surrogacy is no longer a crime in the state under laws passed last night. The changes mean children in a non-commercial surrogate arrangement can have their parentage legally transferred.”

CNA: “The Pontifical Academy for Life began its 16th plenary meeting Thursday afternoon under the theme of ‘Bioethics and Natural Law.’ The sessions of the congress will seek to “regain” an understanding of natural law.”

Sally Satel writing in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review: “Does being a bioethicist entitle one to any such moral authority, edifying the rest of us about right and wrong? Is this what society should expect of its ‘ethics experts’? . . . It is hard to gauge how much impact organized bioethics has had on society. If the activist wing closed up shop and the pundits went home, it is doubtful they would be missed. But one hopes that at least its scholarly and didactic entities will live on. With our growing technical capacity to manipulate our biology and thus our destiny, biomedical dilemmas will certainly increase in number and in difficulty, and they will require as much thoughtful attention as they can get. But social justice should be left to others — to the rest of us. The more bioethics promotes an agenda of social or economic reform, the more it betrays itself to be politics by other means.”

Zenit: “A proposed bill that would legalize altruistic surrogacy in Queensland is not only unnecessary, but is a violation of one’s birthright to enter into the world with a mother and a father, says the Family Council of Queensland. Family doctor and spokesman of the organization, Dr. David van Gend, together with its president, Alan Baker, wrote this in a letter sent this week to the state’s Parliament, which is set to vote Wednesday on the Surrogacy Bill 2009.”

Religion Link: “The ethics of fertility treatments are struggling to keep up with rapid-fire advances in biotechnology. The case of Nadya Suleman, the ‘Octomom’ who gave birth to octuplets in January 2009 through reproductive technology, is just an extreme example of the ethical dilemmas that parents, medical professionals and religious leaders are facing.”

OneNewsNow: “Pro-Life Wisconsin and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act. Peggy Hamill, director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, reports on the findings. ‘The documents confirm that UW is already involved in research using aborted baby body parts,’ she explains. ‘This is something that Pro-Life Wisconsin has known for many, many years, but these documents in print confirm that.’”

Dov Fox, Taking Sides on Genetic Modification (January 31, 2010). American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1545513

“Should government fund safe human enhancements for the hereditary contribution to good looks or athletic prowess or IQ? Is there reason to restrict genetic interventions that would create chickens without the nesting instincts that agitate normal chickens confined to life in a battery cage? Or cows with stunted emotions that would feel less fear as they were led off to slaughter? Or pigs with no legs, better suited to a sedentary existence as bacon-to-be? Some philosophers argue that political decisions about such practices, to be legitimate, must be made without reference to reasons that arise from within controversial worldviews. They believe that society is arranged best when governed by principles that leave citizens free to pursue their own views about what gives life value. So the reasons that public officials give to justify state action must not privilege some moral or religious beliefs over others.”

Boston Globe: “Scientists have detected glimmers of awareness in some vegetative brain-injury patients and have even communicated with one of them — findings that push the boundaries of how to assess and care for such people . . . The new work, published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, came from researchers in Britain and Belgium. One author is Dr. Steven Laureys at the University of Liege in Belgium.”

Law.com (NY Law Journal): “The case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 09-civ-4515, centers on whether genes, once separated from the lengthy DNA sequence, are sufficiently “new and useful” to be deemed patentable under federal patent law.”

Playing the Odds or Playing God? Limiting Parental Ability to Create Disabled Children through Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
Karen E. Schiavone, 73 Alb. L. Rev. 283 (2009)

“Advances in assisted reproductive technology in the last two decades have made it possible to screen embryos for certain genetic disabilities and diseases to ensure that children are born free from disability or disease. Recently, however, disabled parents and their physicians have used this technology to assure that their children are born with the same disability with which they are afflicted. This Comment argues that parents have neither a moral right nor a legal right to use this technology for this purpose. Because there is no federal or state legislation to directly regulate reproductive technology used in this manner, this Comment presents an alternative solution by using the tort law system as a method of indirect regulation of these technologies.”

Reuters: “A lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups last May posed a broad challenge to gene patenting and its outcome could have far reaching effects because one in five human genes are patented. . . . ”

“The primary challenge to traditional notions of parenthood comes from gay conception, not gay marriage.”

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death of the Inconvenient Other
Jonathan Penn, 11 Marq. Elder’s Advisor 165 (2009)

“While Switzerland has enlarged suicide tourism by legalizing physician-assisted suicide, the United States has not readily accepted physician-assisted suicide at the federal level. This article looks at end-of-life issues, focusing on physician-assisted suicide, and whether the federal government’s numerous responsibilities created by the Older Americans Act and other similar acts, the government’s financial limitations, and a growing elderly population will lead to a deterioration of society’s view of elders and a legitimization and acceptance of assisted suicide.”

William E. May reviews Bioethics: A Primer for Christians at the Culture of Life Fundation: “. . . the moral questions raised by somatic cell therapy do not call for ‘the no that should be spoken to germ cell modification but for caution and a willingness to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable aims of therapy.’”

Business Week: “Older mice ‘rejuvenated’ when treated with blood factors from younger mice, researchers found.”

Dakota Voice: “On January 21, SB 74 was introduced in the South Dakota Senate. Of course, it makes no mention of embryonic stem cell research or a different, non-destructive type of stem cell research called adult stem cell research; it lumps “stem cell research” into one disingenuous lump.”

David Daleiden and Jon A. Shields writing in the Weekly Standard: “In fact, with the exception of communism, we can think of few other movements from which so many activists have defected to the opposition . . . Ultrasound and D&E bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves ‘no possibility of denying an act of destruction.’ As they wrote, ‘It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.’”

Dr. Peter Augustine Lawler writing at First Things, Postmodern Conservative: “So it’s obvious to us that the biotechnological promise to free us from the constraints of virtue for the happiness that accompanies pure freedom will never be kept. We’ll never achieve immortality—or some absolute transcendence of the limitations of embodiment. The best we might achieve is a kind of indefinite longevity, which would make death seem more accidental and so our beings more contingent and our moods more anxious than ever. And even if our moods become chemical silly putty in our hands, we still wouldn’t have what it takes to choose the moods that make us most happy with being who we really are.”

“If we believe moral worthiness is solely a byproduct of some measurable attribute or capacity—rather than being intrinsic—we will naturally disdain our future selves . . . ”

Wesley J. Smith writes at First Things: “California’s Proposition 71 was intended to create a $3 billion West Coast counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, empowered to go where the NIH could not — either because of federal policy or funding restraints on biomedical research centered on human embryonic stem cells…Five years later, ESCR has failed to deliver and backers of Prop 71 are admitting failure. ”

The Christian Institute: “A bill that would legalise assisted suicide in Scotland has been presented to the Scottish Parliament today, but critics have warned that any change in the law will endanger lives.”

Death With Dignity’s Emerging Conceit: Could Vacco v. Quill Be Losing Its Appeal?
Arthur G. Svenson, 31 U. La Verne L. Rev. 45 (2009)

“The holding of one Montana judge, who discovered a fundamental right to PAD within enumerated state rights to privacy and dignity, is unlikely to have a parroting effect upon non-Montanan state judges reviewing the constitutional implications of death with dignity issues. After all, Montana’s is only one of five state constitutions that contain substantive enumerations of privacy rights, and for three of those that do, California, Florida, and Alaska, judges have already considered and denied pleadings that state privacy rights shield actions of patients and willing physicians from criminal prosecution for actions amounting to assisted suicide. For the Justices of the Supreme Court, the absence of a ‘careful description of [an] asserted fundamental liberty interest’ in the Bill of Rights that even remotely resembled PAD proved pivotal in convincing them to decline Glucksberg’s invitation to create such a right on their own. Given that reasoning, then, one could quite plausibly imagine that most judges in most states confronting similar state challenges on cognate state constitutional grounds would unhesitatingly follow the High Court’s lead and choose to defer to the prevailing forces at play in the political arena.”

Catholic Medical Association Press Release: “Second, Brehany commented, ‘Coakley’s statements reveal a specific hostility to faithful Catholics. While some news stories of the interview have referred to “devout Catholics” in the emergency room, the interviewer actually referenced Catholics who “believe what the Pope teaches.” This is the definition of a real Catholic, not of a devout Catholic. Coakley’s dismissal of their faith and rights and is a shocking display of disrespect for members of one religion. Even on legal grounds, it is inadequate, as Matt Bowman of the Alliance defense fund has pointed out here.’”

Catholic Online: “‘In the course of the interview, Martha Coakley demonstrated hostility to conscience rights in general, and to the beliefs of faithful Catholics in particular,’ stated John F. Brehany, Ph.D., S.T.L., executive director of the CMA.”

Wall Street Journal: “The debate over surrogacy touches on what can be deeply held views about the rights of mothers, children and couples who might be unable or unwilling to use more traditional methods of procreation, say attorneys and reproductive-rights experts. Critics say surrogacy often exploits impoverished and relatively unsophisticated women, who are enticed by hefty fees into relinquishing their parental rights. Proponents counter that surrogacy agreements usually are struck by consenting, informed adults, who are in a better position than courts or legislators to determine the best interests of a child.”

Christopher L. Griffin and Dov Fox, Disability-Selective Abortion and the Americans with Disabilities Act (November 20, 2009). Utah Law Review, Vol. 2009, p. 1845. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1362146

“This Article examines the influence of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on affective attitudes toward children with disabilities and on the incidence of disability-selective abortion. Applying regression analysis to U.S. natality data, we find that the birthrate of children with Down syndrome declined significantly in the years following the ADA’s passage. Results that control for technological, demographic, and cultural variables suggest that the ADA encouraged prospective parents to prevent the existence of the very class of people the Act was designed to protect. We explain this paradox by showing how specific ADA provisions could have given rise to demeaning media depictions and social conditions that reinforced negative understandings and expectations among prospective parents about what it means to have a child with a disability. We discuss implications for antidiscrimination law and prenatal testing policy.”

The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living . . . Or is It? The Sanctity of Human Life in American Courtrooms
Stephanie R. Fueger, 33 S. Ill. U. L.J. 571 (2009)

“This Comment argues that the ways in which the disparities between wrongful pregnancy and wrongful birth claims are handled by judges has set up a subconscious bias against those who are born with genetic, developmental or other defects. This article proposes that the current distinctions among such claims be abolished in favor of other alternatives that actually carry out the stated goals of the judges making these decisions: respect for all human life.”

Removing the Veil, Uncovering the Truth: A Child’s Right to Compel Disclosure of His Biological Father’s Identity
Tia M. Young, 53 How. L.J. 217 (2009)

“This Comment argues in favor of a cause of action on behalf of a minor child to compel the child’s mother to disclose the identity of the biological father when the mother has either failed to disclose the father’s identity or provided false or misleading information about the father’s identity.”

AP: “Call it pork in a petri dish – a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.”

“The House voted 242-113 on Wednesday against the bill, which would have allowed the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions, with safeguards to prevent abuses.”

Argus Leader: “A fight over stem-cell science will return to the Legislature this month when a group supporting one phase of research will ask lawmakers to repeal South Dakota’s ban on the process. The group, South Dakotans for Lifesaving Cures, considered taking the issue to voters next November but decided that going to lawmakers instead is cheaper and more practical.”

LifeSiteNews: “A group of Polish scientists have issued a document demanding that the government legislate a statutory ban on artificial (in vitro) fertilization procedures.”

LifeSiteNews reports that the media is in an uproar after Jennifer Lopez expressed opposition to in vitro fertilization and it goes on to explain: “Here, therefore, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Catholic Church, the pro-life movement and even people of vaguely ‘traditional’ moral beliefs like Mrs. Anthony, object to artificial methods of procreation . . . ”

Wesley J, Smith writing at National Review Online: “As we come to the end of the first tenth of the 21st century, pundits are making lists about the decade just past: the biggest stories, the worst movies. In that spirit, here’s a list of the top ten stories in bioethics. This isn’t an idle exercise. Bioethics matters. The field exerts tremendous influence over the most important questions of public policy and moral values: How should we treat the most vulnerable and dependent among us? What makes us human? Indeed, is it even morally relevant that one is human? Trends in bioethics, thus, illuminate where we are as a society and the nature of the culture we are creating for our progeny.”

Findlaw: “Dr. Michael Kamrava, the Beverly Hills fertility doctor who helped his patient Nadya Suleman (a/k/a ‘the Octomom’) birth octuplets after delivering her six other children via in vitro fertilization, was sued by California’s Medical Board for multiple counts of gross negligence.”

Ames C. Grawert, The Fundamental Meaning of ‘Medical Uncertainty’: Judicial Deference to Selective Science in Gonzales V. Carhart (July 17, 2009). 12 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 379, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1435480

“Examining Gonzales v. Carhart, this Note takes the position that the Supreme Court’s latest abortion decision sets a lower bar than is prudent for the scrutiny of scientific and medical congressional ‘findings’ that purport to justify limiting rights otherwise entitled to constitutional protection. In doing so, the Court invites collateral attacks on the same rights through the use and congressional adoption of slipshod, deliberately uniformed science (‘sham science’).”

LifeNews: “The number of euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands rose significantly in 2009 compared with 2008. There were reportedly 200 more deaths under the law, but pro-life advocates say those numbers are likely lowball estimates given the underreporting in the Dutch system.”

ChattahBox: “The Montana case has drawn wide national attention, with advocates for physician-assisted suicide weighing in on the side of Baxter and his doctors lining up against conservative groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council sided with Montana’s attorney general against physician-aided suicide.”

“The Irish Council for Bioethics is to close at the end of this month after a decision by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to terminate its funding . . . ‘You would really want to question the wisdom of shutting down such a body in light of the Supreme Court ruling this week,’ [Dr Siobhán O’Sullivan] added, in a reference to Tuesday’s ruling on access to three frozen embryos.”

LifeNews: “Jeff Laszloffy of the Montana Family Foundation told LifeNews.com, ‘Definitely not what we wanted, but not as bad as it could have been. While we would have preferred an outright reversal of the lower court’s decision, this ruling is a partial victory,’ he explained. ‘The fact that the Court did not find a constitutional right to physician assisted suicide is good for those of us opposed to this abhorrent practice.’”

NPR: “The Montana case has drawn wide national attention, with advocates for physician-assisted suicide weighing in on the side of Baxter and his doctors. Meanwhile, conservative groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council sided with Montana’s attorney general against physician-aided suicide.”

“The Supreme Court disagreed that the Montana Constitution guarantees the right. But it said in an opinion Thursday that ‘we find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy.’”

NPR: “Some say they hold the potential for medical miracles. Others claim they are a moral abomination. Either way, human embryonic stem cells captured headlines during the past decade in a way few areas of scientific research have before.”

Government Endorsement of Living on a Prayer: Religious Exemptions from the Duty to Provide Medical Treatment for Children
Ashley Dose, 30 J. Legal Med. 515 (2009)

“Religious exemptions from the parental duty to provide medical care implicate a wide variety of legal issues, but this article focuses exclusively on the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. First, the exemptions are not mandated by the Free Exercise Clause because the Supreme Court has stated that the free exercise of religion does not include a right to martyr one’s children. Second, the exemptions are not a permissible accommodation of religion under the Establishment Clause. The statutes are divided into two categories for purposes of the Establishment Clause analysis: those that grant an exemption only to recognized religions and those that treat all religions uniformly. The statutes that prefer recognized religions over nonrecognized religions clearly violate the Establishment Clause under the Supreme Court’s holding in Larson v. Valente. The statutes that treat all religions uniformly are a much closer call, and could go either way depending on which standard of analysis is employed.”

Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Laboratory to the State of Hawaii
Lindsay N. McAneeley, 29 U. Haw. L. Rev. 269 (2009)

“This comment considers the current state of the law with respect to PAS and alternative routes to its legalization in the State of Hawai’i. Part II of this comment provides an overview of the current legal standard regarding PAS, reviewing the seminal federal cases, Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, and the federal government’s unsuccessful challenges to this Act. Part III summarizes the reported data from Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, demonstrating the success of the program and the effectiveness of its procedural safeguards. Part IV of this comment discusses why the State of Hawai’i should be the next state to legalize PAS. This part explores the various factors that make Hawai’i a particularly compatible forum for PAS and also reviews the recent efforts that have been made by the Hawai’i legislature to legalize its practice. Part V attempts to explain why these legislative efforts have thus far been unsuccessful, identifying the primary bases of opposition to PAS in Hawai’i. This part also explains why these concerns should not continue to thwart efforts to legalize PAS in Hawai’i. This comment concludes by exploring alternative routes that the citizens of Hawai’i may pursue in their efforts to legalize PAS, including a state constitutional challenge based on Hawai’i's explicit right to privacy, and a public referendum.”

Gowri Ramachandran, Against the Right to Bodily Integrity: Of Cyborgs and Human Rights (July 15, 2009). Denver University Law Review, Vol. 87, No. 1, p. 1, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1434712

“There should be no legal ‘right to bodily integrity,’ marked off by the borders of the organic, integrated human body, whether that right is saleable or not. For instance, once we determine what our bodies have to do with fundamental rights, if anything, we might not be led to protect any freedom to resist vaccination on this basis. (Although certainly other rights, such as religion-based rights, might protect this freedom.) On the other hand, we might be led to protect freedoms of dress and makeup, even though these activities do not involve the manipulation of one’s organic, physically continuous human body. Similarly, the relationship of the body to fundamental rights might compel us to regulate contracts entered into between patients and sellers of prostheses, despite the fact that prostheses are not human. On the other hand, we might not find a rights-based justification for either prohibiting or permitting blood sales.”

LifeSiteNews: “Nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.”

Baby Doe and Beyond: Examining the Practical and Philosophical Influences Impacting Medical Decision-Making on Behalf of Marginally-Viable Newborns
Craig A. Conway, 25 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1097 (2009)

“Advances in technology and medical education in the past century have allowed doctors to save some of these extremely premature newborns who previously would have most certainly died. However, the philosophical, ethical, and legal concerns raised by attempting to preserve these infants are being weighed by an increasing number of decision makers. Whereas, prior to the 1970s, decisions regarding the infant’s treatment plan were primarily in the hands of the parents and physicians-that is no longer the case. What was once a private decision made by these grief-stricken parents with the advice of their physicians has since become a matter for the public domain.”

Kimberly Mutcherson, Making Mommies: Law, Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, and the Complications of Pre-Motherhood (September 26, 2008). Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1274361

“The article focuses on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (‘PGD’), a technology that allows health care providers and potential parents to screen embryos for a range of characteristics prior to implanting them in a woman’s uterus. Many potential parents use the technology to screen out life-threatening diseases, but many have expressed concerns about the technology’s potential use to screen for benign characteristics such as sex. Recognizing the potential for future regulation, this article focuses on three major topics 1) the potential for legal regulation of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; 2) the relationship between such future regulation and the existing legal landscape attendant to parenting, procreation, and pregnancy; 3) and the specific consequences for women of legal incursion into PGD decision-making.”

“Despite the Irish constitutional guarantee for the right to life ‘from conception,’ the Supreme Court ruled that the three embryos cannot be implanted against the wishes of the woman’s estranged husband.”

Stormans and the Pharmacists: Where Have All the Conscientious Rx Gone?
Jason R. Mau, 114 Penn St. L. Rev. 293 (2009)

“This Comment will focus on the current debate and current state of protection for a pharmacist’s right of conscience when dealing with emergency contraceptives. Initially, this Comment will provide a backdrop for the current debate, describing court findings in the recent cases. This Comment will also introduce the drafting of the proposed rule, and filing of the final rule, by the Department of Health and Human Resources. Next, this Comment will analyze the current situation, looking at the current positions of both those opposed to, and in support of, a pharmacist’s right of conscience, and the protections afforded by the current proceedings. Included in the analysis will be an examination of the Department of Health and Human Resources’ criticisms. Finally, the Comment will consider whether the recent regulation will provide any additional protection to the federal case law currently recognizing a pharmacist’s right of conscience.”

“The creation of Ethan and Bridget tested the boundaries of the field known as third-party reproduction, in which more than two people collaborate to have a baby.”

“The Irish Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a gay man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple should be permitted to see his 3-year-old son regularly – in part because Ireland’s constitution doesn’t recognize the lesbians as a valid family unit.”

Collaborated Death: An Exploration of the Swiss Model of Assisted Suicide for Its Potential to Enhance Oversight and Demedicalize the Dying Process
Stephen J. Ziegler, 37 J.L. Med. & Ethics 318 (2009)

“Over time, however, patients, families, and physicians began to question whether medicine’s ability to artificially extend the lives of the dying was really in the patient’s best interest. A ‘right to die’ movement subsequently emerged, a social movement motivated in large part by a desire to regain control over the dying process. As the movement continued to evolve, a myriad of options became associated with the so-called right to die such as living wills, health care proxies, and even physician-assisted suicide (PAS) (a procedure where a physician provides a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient who intends to hasten their own death through self-administration of the substance). While each one of these end-of-life options remain unique, all arguably are evidence of a desire to promote patient autonomy and demedicalize death. (One could also argue that the right to die movement is also biological and evolutionary; motivated by a species desire to establish a niche, maintain equilibrium, and ensure future survival in response to medicine’s artificial interference with the dying process). And while most matters relating to the withdrawal and withholding of treatment may raise some controversy in domestic policy and clinical practice, PAS remains far more controversial.”

The State of Affairs Regarding Counseling for Expectant Parents of a Child With a Disability: Do ACOG’s New Practice Guidelines Signify the Arrival of a Brave New World?
Matthew Diehr, 53 St. Louis U. L.J. 1287 (2009)

“[T]his Comment seeks to honestly discuss the impact the tort actions of wrongful birth and wrongful life–both premised as they are on the assertion that a fetus would have been aborted had the parents known of the fetus’ congenital condition–have on the disabled community and on society at large.”

Paid Sterilizations for Poor Women: Coercing Them Out of Poverty
Lynette Roberson, 3 S. Regional Black L. Students Ass’n L.J. 84 (2009)

“In September 2008, [Louisiana Representative John LaBruzzo of Metairie] suggested a plan to reduce the state’s public assistance payments to poor residents. He projected that, one day, persons receiving state assistance would outnumber taxpayers. His suggested solution to the potential problem is that the state should offer poor people $1,000 to undergo sterilization: tubal ligation for women and vasectomy for men . . . Part I of this article will discuss the similarities between LaBruzzo’s plan and its predecessors in federal law and Louisiana state law. Part II addresses the seemingly voluntary nature of the program and raises key challenges that the plan presents, including legal challenges under contract law, unexpected consequences, and outcomes of similar programs tried elsewhere. These challenges and criticisms of the plan are not limited to its application in Louisiana. Part III acknowledges the state’s interests in controlling its budget and debunks claims that families are profiting from public assistance. Part IV offers appropriate alternatives that would more adequately address LaBruzzo’s concerns. Part V concludes the article.”

Legal Stories and the Promise of Problematizing Reproductive Rights
Pamela D. Bridgewater, 21 Law & Literature 402 (2009)

“Drawing on Rabinow’s Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology, and on my earlier work on slavery, reproduction, and constitutional interpretation, this essay argues that supplementary narratives of the lived experiences of black women seeking reproductive rights, employed in the spirit of Rabinow’s “pedagogy of creativity, curiosity, and deviance,” make possible the transformation of available discourses on reproductive rights.”

National Review Online: “With respect to each of the foundational principles of justice and the common good addressed in the Manhattan Declaration, important decisions are now being made or soon will be made. These decisions will either uphold or undermine what is just and good. There is no avoiding the issues or evading the decisions. Both sides in the great moral struggle understand this.”

At the Culture of Life Foundation, William E. May reviews Embryo: A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen.

Miami Herald: “Adult stem cells might help repair hearts damaged by heart attack — in part by becoming heart cells themselves. That was the finding of a new study, released Monday, that points to a promising new treatment for heart-attack patients that could reduce mortality and lessen the need for heart transplants. Adult stem cells also could help heal livers, kidneys, pancreases and other organs.”

White House: “Today [11/24], President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order creating a new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He also announced today he has appointed Amy Gutmann to serve as Chair and James W. Wagner to serve as Vice Chair of the Commission.”

The Spectator: “Given the association of so many of its founding fathers with the dismal pseudo- science of eugenics, perhaps we should not be surprised that our welfare system has ended up preferring safety nets to trampolines, or that it prefers simply to warehouse the poor rather than give people who have fallen on hard times a chance to take responsibility for their own lives. Eugenics infected its adherents with a deeply pessimistic view of the poor, branding them as irredeemably genetically second-rate, and this view has cast a long shadow over social policy assumptions.”

Philadelphia Bulletin: “‘A disability should not be a death sentence. No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is not worth saving,’ said Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. ADF filed the lawsuit and emergency measure to save Baby Gabriel.”

Catholic News Agency: “‘We are pleased at the ethics panel’s decision and look forward to full resolution in writing so that Baby Gabriel’s life will no longer be in danger,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.”

OneNewsNow: “ADF attorney Matt Bowman explains the infant’s situation. ‘He has trouble breathing. He has some other difficulties, but he’s in stable condition and his mother wants his care to continue,’ explains Bowman. ‘We believe that a disability should not be a death sentence, and that the doctors at that hospital who were threatening to withdraw his care over the mother’s objection should not have done so and were violating the law.’”

The Church Report: “‘A disability should not be a death sentence. No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is not worth saving,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. ‘Doctors at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital need to do the right thing and make sure Baby Gabriel gets the treatment he needs to live. He is loved by his mother, is in stable condition, and could live for a long time. The hospital’s treatment–or lack thereof–of this helpless little boy is simply inhuman.’”

Wesley J. Smith writing at Secondhand Smoke, First Things: “An attorney affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund has used litigation to stop a Tennessee hospital from unilaterally withdrawing life support from an infant.”

WorldNetDaily: “‘The ethics panel formally agreed not to withdraw his care,’ the organization said this afternoon. ‘ADF attorneys are withdrawing their motion for temporary restraining order but will not withdraw the complaint until a written agreement is finalized.’ ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said he’s pleased with the ethics panel’s decision and looks forward to full resolution in writing so the baby’s life will no longer be in danger.”