This book takes couples down the obstacle-strewn path toward fertility, discussing all factors that encompass difficulty conceiving.

This article defends the classical liberal view of human interactions that gives strong protection to associational freedom except in cases that involve the use of force or fraud or the exercise of monopoly power. That conception is at war with the modern antidiscrimination or human rights laws that operate in competitive markets in such vital areas as employment and housing, with respect to matters of race, sex, age, and increasingly, disability. The article further argues that using the “ (...) class='Hi'>human rights” label to boost the moral case for antidiscrimination laws gets matters exactly backwards, given that any program of forced association on one side of a status relationship (employer, not employee; landlord, not tenant) is inconsistent with any universal norm governing all individuals regardless of role in all associative arrangements. The articled also discusses the tensions that arise under current Supreme Court law, which protects associational freedom arising out of expressive activities (as in cases involving the NAACP or the Boy Scouts), but refuses to extend that protection to other forms of association, such as those involving persons with disabilities. The great vice of all these arrangements is that they cannot guarantee the stability of mandated win/lose relationships. The article further argues that a strong social consensus against discrimination is insufficient reason to coerce dissenters, given that holders of the dominant position can run their operations as they see fit even if others do otherwise. It closes with a short model human rights statute drafted in the classical liberal tradition that avoids the awkward line drawing and balancing that give rise to modern bureaucracies to enforce modern antidiscrimination laws. (shrink)

It would be unproblematically correct to say "the laws of Pennsylvania have it that a person is eligible to vote at age eighteen." But whether someone is actually mature enough to exercise his electoral franchise appropriately will very much depend on the individual. In setting the voting age by fiat, Society leaps in where Nature fears to tread. Many quantities that figure importantly in shaping our conduct of affairs are not specified by nature but are artifacts of human contrivance. (...) At what age, for example, is a person old enough to marry, drink alcoholic beverages responsibly, handle fireworks safely, manage his own property, enter into contracts, see a violent movie, serve on a jury, or hold a public office? These are not quantities writ large in nature's impersonal scheme of things but matters of social decision made for reasons of public polity and administrative convenience. They are legislated quantities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, from the point of view of a legal positivist conception of law and its associated approach to legal interpretation, that having a ‘democratic Bill of Rights’ as a basis for enacting ‘human rights legislation’ is more legitimate and likely to be more effective with respect to promoting human rights than the contemporary model of using ‘juridical Bills of Rights’ as a basis for modifying or overriding enacted legislation.Resumen:Desde una concepción positivista del derecho (...) y su respectivo enfoque hacia la interpretación jurídica, en este artículo se argumenta que el tener un “Bill of Rights democrático” como base para expedir una “legislación de derechos humanos” resulta ser más legítimo y más efectivo para la promoción de los derechos humanos, que el modelo contemporáneo de “Bill of Rights jurisdiccionales” que sirve para modificar o invalidar la legislación promulgada. (shrink)

The controversies in Bristol, Alder Hey and elsewhere in the UK surrounding the removal and retention of human tissue and organs have led to extensive law reform in all three UK legal systems. This paper reports a short study of the reactions of a range of health professionals to these changes. Three main areas of ethical concern were noted: the balancing of individual rights and social benefit; the efficacy of the new procedures for consent; and the helpfulness for professional (...) practice of the new legislation and regulation. Recognition of these concerns may help in forging a new partnership between professionals and patients and their families. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr., defied illness to continue his work on the philosophy of law. This book is a monument to MacCallum’s effort, containing fourteen of his essays, five of them published here for the first time. Two of those previously published are widely admired and reprinted: “Legislative Intent,” certainly one of the best papers ever published on its topic, and “Negative and Positive Freedom,” which offered a new way of looking at a (...) distinction that had been canonical for the last two centuries. To complete MacCallum’s unfinished pieces, Marcus G. Singer and Rex Martin painstakingly consulted MacCallum’s notes for planned revisions. MacCallum discusses legal reasoning, the application of rules, the interpretation of statutes and constitutional provisions, and the relation of these matters to morality and justice. In the last decade of his working life, he became greatly concerned with the interrelated themes of integrity, autonomy, conscience, and violence. He wished to relate competition to morality and justice to adversarial systems of law. These themes are woven together in Legislative Intent and constitute the main subject of some of the essays. MacCallum was engaged in a constant search for truth and understanding, and in his life and work lived up to Emerson’s vision of the “American Scholar” as a “human being thinking.” These essays are informed by the author’s deep curiosity, penetrating intelligence, wide knowledge, and outstanding character. They will be treasured wherever these characteristics and true philosophy are treasured. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates a virtue-centered approach to normative legal theory in the context of legislation. The core idea of such a theory is that the fundamental aim of law should be the promotion of human flourishing, where a flourishing human life is understood as a life of rational and social activities that express the human excellences. Law can promote flourishing in several ways. Because peace and prosperity are conducive to human flourishing, legislation should aim at the (...) establishment and maintenance of these conditions. The human excellences are developed in childhood and young adulthood by stable and nurturing families and by educational institutions: therefore, the law should support and foster families and schools. Although some critics have argued that an aretaic theory of legislation must support so-called “vice laws,” this is not the case. A virtue-centered approach must take into account the effects produced by criminalization of alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prosti... (shrink)

Background. South Africa (SA) currently has a golden opportunity to legislate on human heritable genome editing (HHGE), as the country is revising its assisted reproductive technology regulations. A set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE, which could seamlessly slot into the current regulations, has already been developed. The principles underlying the proposed set of sub-regulations are as follows: HHGE should be regulated to improve the lives of the people and should not be banned; the well-established standard of safety and (...) efficacy should be used in the regulation of HHGE; quality of life is what matters, and not preserving a ‘normal’ genome; parents’ reproductive autonomy must be respected; and equality of access to approved HHGE technology should be promoted. Objectives. To ascertain whether the proposed set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE is aligned with public opinion in SA, and SA’s Bill of Rights. Methods. Public opinion in SA is determined with reference to a deliberative public engagement study on HHGE conducted among South Africans, and the relevant rights in the Bill of Rights are interpreted with reference to recent case law. Results. This proposed set of sub-regulations that deals with HHGE is aligned with public opinion in SA, and SA’s Bill of Rights. Conclusion. Despite the legal and ethical complexities of HHGE, the proposed set of sub-regulations provides a targeted and effective legislative approach. They fit seamlessly into the country’s existing health law framework, creating specific legal standards for HHGE that align with both public opinion and the country’s Bill of Rights. (shrink)

This work sought to carry out a comparative analysis of in vitro fertilization (IVF) vis-à-vis St. Thomas Aquinas’ Natural Law Theory. Both of them emanated from problem of infertility. IVF makes use of artificial insemination for fertilization which is quite contrary to the natural process of sexual reproduction. This work makes use of analytic method to analyse comparatively in vitro fertilization and St. Thomas Aquinas’ Natural Law Theory. Thus, this work conceives that IVF is one of the (...) assisted reproductive technologies in the scientific exploration of genetic engineering and bio-technology which emanated to tackle the problem of genetic inheritance outside marriage. It contravenes the coital or natural reproduction which conforms to St. Thomas Aquinas’ second precept of natural law. Again, IVF is artificial as such it is pruned to many complications. There is no adequate information given by the medical practitioners or providers of this service on the health hazards or risks involve in IVF. In addition, in vitro fertilization makes provision for donor gamete and surrogate motherhood which may have many negative implications both for the couples, off-spring, gestation mother, and society at large. (shrink)

By exploring the meaning construction of Chinese citizenship stipulated in Chinese legislation and its interaction with social identities and human nature in the Chinese society, the present study investigates the nature and evolution of the conception of Chinese citizens through three selected cases from Chinese legislations, which illuminate that Chinese citizens are essentially persons with independent personalities defined by the rights and obligations stipulated in legislation. This conception is further strengthened by the entitlement to private properties and equality before (...) law. This conception of Chinese citizenship is concrete and meaningful in the sense that it is underpinned with reference to social identities as person, people and personality in Chinese legislations. The reference of the conception to human being constitutes the essence of Chinese legislation. The meaning construction of Chinese citizenship is indeed a dynamic process engineered in the social and cultural process. The findings on the evolution of the construction of Chinese citizenship in Chinese legislation suggest that the formation of legal identity through legislation varies greatly in different countries. Nevertheless, the realization of the conception of citizenship will necessarily be backed up by social identities as person, people and personality, which will be further strengthened and expanded by the legitimating of private properties and equality before law. Citizenship is achieved by social participants through mediation engineered within the social and cultural process. (shrink)

Until approximately twenty years ago, advances in the study of human genetics had little influence on the practice of medicine. In the 1980s, this changed dramatically with the mapping of the altered genes that cause cystic fibrosis and Huntington disease. In just a few years, these discoveries led to DNA-based tests that enabled clinicians to determine whether prospective parents were carriers of CF or whether an individual carried the Huntington gene and, as a result, would almost certainly develop the (...) disease.Observers interested in the social and economic implications of genetic technology realized that such genetic tests could be used by insurance companies to predict which insurance applicants were likely to become ill or even die from these diseases. (shrink)

Si, depuis quelques dizaines d'années, la médecine de la reproduction s'est considérablement développée pour venir en aide aux couples confrontés à l'impossibilité de concevoir naturellement un enfant, c'est généralement avec l'objectif initial de favoriser une conception avec les gamètes du couple. Le développement successif de l' " Insémination Artificielle " et de la " Fécondation in Vitro " a néanmoins permis dans le même temps de faire émerger différentes possibilités alternatives de conception, en transgressant notamment le principe de la filiation (...) biologique. Un couple peut aujourd'hui concevoir un enfant avec d'autres gamètes que les siens et même envisager l'accueil d'un embryon conçu par un autre couple. Dans ces situations, la question de la conciliation des intérêts des différents acteurs se pose. En optant pour la règle de l'anonymat des dons qui prive l'enfant de toute information sur le donneur, certaines législations semblent considérer que ce principe allie au mieux ces intérêts. Pourtant non seulement la demande croissante de levée de l'anonymat formulée par les enfants issus de l'assistance médicale à la procréation fragilise ce choix de société mais certains pays ont devancé ce voeu en choisissant la transparence génétique. Cet ouvrage est le fruit de riches débats et réflexions échangés entre juristes, médecins, psychanalystes et sociologues, lors du premier Workshop du Réseau Universitaire International de Bioéthique. Adoptant une approche comparative, les articles rassemblés examinent la manière dont sont organisées, dans seize pays de cultures différentes, les pratiques et les conséquences d'un anonymat absolu, relatif, voire inexistant. En dépit d'une diversité de systèmes, un constat unanime ressort : la question de la levée de l'anonymat se pose partout avec acuité. La réponse, elle, réunit ou divise. Mais peut-il en être autrement sur un sujet qui touche aux perceptions sociales de l'identité de la personne, de la filiation ou de la " parentalité "? Créé en 2007, le Réseau Universitaire International de Bioéthique a pour objectif de promouvoir la recherche universitaire en rapprochant des chercheurs, de pays et, de cultures différents, spécialistes des questions liées aux pratiques biomédicales. Partant d'une approche croisée des différents systèmes juridiques, les travaux de ce réseau analysent les choix sociaux en matière biomédicale à travers les prismes de l'éthique, de l'anthropologie, la philosophie ou la sociologie. Ils veulent ainsi contribuer à la réflexion internationale sur la régulation des pratiques biomédicales et, incidemment, sur la conciliation entre les diversités culturelles et un certain universalisme, terreau d'une harmonisation du droit. Cette nouvelle collection sera donc un outil indispensable pour toute personne en quête d'une compréhension des enjeux sociaux de la bioéthique. (shrink)

Human population growth must end, and the sooner the better, for both nature and a humanity that pursues boundlessly increasing affluence. Poisoning of organisms and massive extinctions result, exacerbated by population momentum. Infliction of pain and death largely for trivial reasons constitutes the ignoble dénouement of our history. Reducing human numbers would be only one fitting response to recognition of this situation. Reliance on voluntary socio-economic reforms, including even the empowennent of women, appears unlikely to lead to below-replacement-level (...) fertility, since families on average still elect to have more than two children. Discussed are three reasons for thinking that coercive measures could help to engender a decreasing human population without negating preferable voluntary efforts to the same end. Hence some coercion to reduce fertility is justifiable. (shrink)

According to the Standard Picture of how law works, the content of the law that is created by legal texts such as statutes and constitutional provisions is determined by the meaning of these texts. Most proponents of this picture claim more specifically that the relevant notion of meaning in play is the communicative content of legal texts and that communicative content is itself determined by considerations of the intentions of legal authorities. In recent years, the Standard Picture has become the (...) subject of heated philosophical debate. Focusing on statutes as the paradigmatic type of legal texts, this thesis aims to contribute to this debate in two central ways. First, it argues that the aforementioned ‘intention-based’ versions of the Standard Picture lack convincing responses to three important objections that have been raised by critics. First, they lack an adequate account of how legislative bodies can be reasonably ascribed the intentions that they would need according to such versions. Second, they fail to explain important aspects of legal practice. Third, they provide at best a parochial theory of the content of the law that is generated by statutes. The second contribution is to provide a more sustained defence of the Standard Picture by developing a new ‘commitment-based’ version of this view. This version is based on an alternative theory of communication and claims that communicative content is not determined by considerations of intentions but rather by the commitments that are incurred by means of communicative acts. It is argued that this version can deal with the objections that have been raised by critics and therefore provides a more robust version of the Standard Picture. (shrink)

A practical guide for fellow lawyers to navigate international ART law.

本书以人类辅助生殖法律制度为研究对象,对这一制度在不同国家,我国不同法域的产生,发展及未来方向作了全面分析,以比较分析的视角,从中总结出可为我国借鉴吸收的优秀成果,对于未来法制发展方向与具体制度的建构 提出了可行化的学者建议.

Fertility treatments raise a range of social and ethical issues regarding self-identity for family, sexual intimacy, and the interests and welfare of potential children. Eggs and sperm are combined to produce fertilized eggs. These eggs are then implanted as embryos and grow into viable fetuses, which are carried by the original mother or a surrogate mother. This artificial form of conception can challenge religious values and family structures. In-vitro fertilization (IVF) can be considered either as a medical miracle or (...) playing with divinity. What obligation do medical professionals have to infertile women and to what extent? The bioethical dilemma of IVF use encompasses different moral issues for all involved in the process. Ethical issues address respect for personal autonomy, access and care, and the duty of the health care provider to be compassionate to persons whose actions and moral values may be different from their own. Health care providers need to impart empathy, understanding and sensitivity towards this unique type of patient population. The conflict for those treating patients who are trying to conceive by IVF includes respect for personal autonomy, nonmaleficence, justice, utility and the ethics of care. As a registered nurse in a postpartum hospital unit, I have seen antepartum and postpartum women involved with this new technology. I have worked with mothers and their partners as they experience different levels of anxiety and hope for the future. There is an underlying psychosocial connection with patients who undergo IVF treatments. The purpose of this article is to explore the ethical use of IVF on older women. Is this type of biotechnolgy being applied for the right reasons and for the best patient population? (shrink)

Over the last two decades, social scientists across disciplines have been researching how value is extracted and governed in the reproductive bioeconomy, which broadly refers to the various ways reproductive tissues, bodies, services, customers, workers, and data are inserted into capitalist modes of accumulation. While many of these studies are empirically grounded in single country–based analyses, this paper proposes an integrative political economy framework, structured around the concept of “global fertility chains.” The latter articulates the reproductive bioeconomy as a nexus (...) of intraconnected practices, operations, and transactions between enterprises, states, and households across the globe, through which reproductive services and commodities are produced, distributed, and consumed. Employing a diffractive reading of the literature on commodity chains and care chains, this unified approach scrutinizes the coproduction of value, biology, and technoscience and their governance mechanisms in the accumulation of capital by taking into account the unevenly developed geographies of global fertility chains, their reliance on women’s waged and unwaged reproductive labor, and the networked role of multiple actors at multiple scales without losing sight of the constitutive role of national states in creating demand, organizing supply, and accommodating the distribution of surplus value. We empirically ground this integrative political economy approach of the reproductive bioeconomy through collaborative, multisited fieldwork on transnational reproduction networks in Israel/palestine, Romania, Georgia, and Spain. (shrink)

In discussing the effects of grandparents on child survival in natural fertility populations, Coall & Hertwig (C&H) rely extensively on the review by Sear and Mace (2008). We conducted a more detailed summary of the same literature and found that the evidence in favor of beneficial associations between grandparenting and child survival is generally weak or absent. The present state of the data on human alloparenting supports a more restricted use of the term Human stem family situations with (...) celibate helpers-at-the-nest can be described as cooperatively breeding, but the term is a poor fit to many human family systems. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Images of Legislation Legislation in Legal Theory Analytics of the Legislative Process Interpreting and Applying Legislation A Forum of Principle? References.

The McNaughton Rules, which are used when someone pleads insanity at the time of a homicide, are out of date and unsatisfactory. Suggestions have been made about how the insanity defence can be reformulated. The preference of a defence of diminished responsibility means abandoning an ancient and humane principle of not convicting those who are so mentally disordered as not to be responsible for their actions. There is a need for Parliament to consider changes to the law both to prevent (...) the mentally disordered being sent to prison inappropriately, and because the Mental Health Act 1983 has not taken account of rare cases where an offender such as an epileptic might be found legally insane but not mentally disordered. (shrink)

Review of the 2022 book by Yann Ardagna and Anne Chaillou, Les restes humains : législation, intérêt scientifique et enjeu éthique des ensembles anthropobiologiques.

This article develops an account of the nature and limits of the state’s legislative authority that closely attends to the challenge of harmonizing Kant’s ethical and juridical theories. It clarifies some key Kantian concepts and terms, then explains the way in which the state’s three interlocking authorities – legislative, executive, and judicial – are metaphysically distinct and mutually dependent. It describes the emergence of the Kantian state and identifies the preconditions of its authority. Then it offers a metaphysical model of (...) the Kantian state and uses it to argue that the activity of juridical lawgiving is an act of the omnilateral will itself. Legislative authority is limited in the sense that it does not include the capacity to create juridical laws that are conceptually incompatible with the idea of universal external freedom. I argue that my proposed account of the legislative authority is wholly consistent with that authority’s exclusive lawgiving capacity and does not threaten the possibility of ‘distributive justice’ – the legal finality that is the sine qua non of a civil condition. (shrink)

Male provisioning ability may have evolved as a “good dad” indicator through sexual selection, whereas male creativity may have evolved partly as a “good genes” indicator. If so, women near peak fertility (midcycle) should prefer creativity over wealth, especially in short-term mating. Forty-one normally cycling women read vignettes describing creative but poor men vs. uncreative but rich men. Women’s estimated fertility predicted their short-term (but not long-term) preference for creativity over wealth, in both their desirability ratings of individual men (r=.40, (...) p<.01) and their forced-choice decisions between men (r=.46, p<.01). These preliminary results are consistent with the view that creativity evolved at least partly as a good genes indicator through mate choice. (shrink)

The utilization of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in assisted reproduction has undergone a notable surge since its inception in 1979. Consequently, the demand for well-trained IVF personnel has become crucial to address the expanding technical requirements of this field. However, acquiring specialized technical expertise remains a challenge in various regions and countries, particularly in the Arab Islamic region, frequently playing a pivotal role in the successful implementation of medical technology. Ensuring a proficient workforce of IVF experts requires the provision of (...) practical and comprehensive training opportunities. This work reveals the ethical considerations surrounding the utilization of actual human eggs in IVF training courses and examines potential alternative approaches to meet the training needs in a manner deemed ethically acceptable. We analyzed the bioethical issues of using human eggs in IVF training, considering ethical principles, benefits, and concerns to determine permissibility and contribute to discussions on reproductive technology ethics and the responsible use of human reproductive material. In addition, we shed light on perspectives from Islamic scholarship. In conclusion, utilizing immature eggs in practical IVF training, while ensuring informed consent, is widely deemed acceptable within the ethical framework. However, the crucial necessity of robust oversight, especially in the private sector, cannot be overstated. To address these critical considerations, the initial and fundamental step entails conducting a comprehensive regional survey. Using immature eggs in IVF training seems acceptable, but it is crucial to establish an oversight practice. Organizing a collaborative workshop with stakeholders from both the public and private sectors is a crucial first step in developing this controlled practice. (shrink)

There is a widely held view that legislative intention determines the meaning of a statute. The focus of this article is meaning in the sense of full linguistic content, which may not be the same as legal content. Linguistic intentionalism appears to have its greatest appeal when a statute has a partly implied linguistic meaning. It seems natural to suppose that the part of the meaning that is implied by the explicit wording in the statute is determined by an intention (...) of the legislature—roughly, what the legislature intended to imply. The purpose of this article is to present some new reasons to doubt linguistic intentionalism and to offer an alternative for a particular kind of implied statutory meaning that some philosophers of language call implicitures. Rather than legislative intention, the meaning of implicitures is metaphysically determined by intention-free pragmatic linguistic norms, the grasp of which is part of the language competence of ordinary law subjects. The use of these norms, in combination with certain facts about background social practices and other conventions, generates implicitures that may be inconsistent with actual communicative intentions. These intention-free pragmatic norms, and the implicitures they generate, are explanatorily prior to the fact—if there is such a fact—of what impliciture it is reasonable to infer that the enacting legislature (or the legislators collectively) intended. Reference to legislative linguistic intention (actual or reasonably imputed) is thus explanatorily inert. (shrink)

On September 22, 1998, California Governor Pete Wilson signed Senate Bill 1785 into law, dramatically affecting the entire California animal sheltering community. Dubbed the "Hayden law" by the animal protection community after the bill's sponsor, it represents the state of California's attempt to legislate a solution to both the companion animal overpopulation problem and the friction between the agencies trying to end it. The persistence of the bill's primary supporters, a Los Angeles veterinarian and a UCLA law school professor and (...) the overall lack of opposition to it helped SB 1785 sail through the California legislature. Because of the scope of the bill and the immense cost of implementation, its passage shocked many in the sheltering community. This case study highlights the consequences of legislation that was crafted based on worse case scenarios and over which there was little collaborative effort. It concludes with suggestions that might be useful to other states contemplating similar such legislation. (shrink)

The question of the moral status of AI and the extent to which that status ought to be recognised by societal institutions is one that has not yet received a satisfactory answer from lawyers. This paper seeks to provide a solution to the problem by defending a moral foundation for the recognition of legal personhood for AI, requiring the status to be granted should a threshold criterion be reached. The threshold proposed will be bare, noumenal agency in the Kantian sense. (...) Agency has been identified by Alan Gewirth as the source of the rights claims of our own species and, at risk of contradiction, is a foundation that must be expanded to all agents or else we contradict the foundation of our own rights. This is something that ought to be recognised through the granting of legal personhood to all noumenal agents by any system that requires such personhood for the enforcement of rights, or else the rule restricting legal personhood cannot be seen as a valid legal norm. Having laid out the case, the paper will move on to defend this natural law conception against the narrower definition of legal personhood proposed by Bryson et al. with regards to AI. It will argue that bare agency is a sufficient, though not necessary, criterion for the ascription of legal personhood in any system that sees the status as necessary for the ascription of legal rights. The paper will conclude by analysing the proposals currently making their way through the legislatures of the UK and European Union. They will be assessed for their compatibility with the claim that a functioning legal system necessarily must recognise the legal personhood of all noumenal agents regardless of their origins, and whether they are future-proofed for the possibility that AI may meet this threshold. (shrink)

I problematize the notion of self-legislation. I follow in Elizabeth Anscombe’s footsteps and suggest that on a plausible reading of Kant, he does not so much misidentify the sources of moral normativity, as fail to identify any such sources in the first place: The set of terms with which the Kantian is attempting to do so is confused. Interpreters today take Kant’s legal language to be merely metaphorical. The language of ‘self-legislation,’ in particular, is replaced by such interpreters with a (...) language of ‘self-constitution.’ I challenge that, and claim that the language of legislation and judgment was, for Kant, more than a metaphor: The recognition of the moral law, he says, motivates us as if it were “the bidding of another person.” Legislation is typically remote in this way. It typically requires a distance between lawgiver and law-receiver—a distance that allows, for instance, for self-inspection and judgment. For Kant, these are the terms in which to explain the forms of the moral judgment and the sources of moral normativity. It is questionable, however, whether we can be remote from our own actions in the way required—whether we can observe our own actions. We cannot, for example, raise our hand and wonder how far it will go up. I develop this claim into an Anscombean challenge to Kant, and I call upon Kantians to take it seriously. (shrink)

On January 18, 2006, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the constitutional challenge to New Hampshire's Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act would be remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, to determine whether the Court of Appeals could, consistent with New Hampshire's legislative intent, formulate a narrower remedy than a permanent injunction against enforcement of the parental notification law in its entirety.In 2003, New Hampshire enacted the Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act. (...) The Act specifies, in pertinent part, that “No abortion shall be performed upon an unemancipated minor or upon a female for whom a guardian or conservator has been appointed… until at least 48 hours after written notice of the pending abortion has been delivered....” The Act allows for three exceptions where a physician may perform an abortion on a minor child without parental or guardian notification. (shrink)

This study assesses the extent to which job application forms violate the New Zealand Human Rights Act. The sample for the study includes 229 job application forms, collected from a variety of large and small, public- and private-sector organizations that together employ approximately 200,000 workers. Two hundred and four or 88% of the job application forms contain at least one violation of the Act. One hundred and sixty five or 72% contain two or more and 140 or 61% contain (...) three or more violations. The most common violations concern age, gender, nationality, and disability. The least common concern political opinion, ethical belief, religious belief, and sexual orientation. Despite widespread violations, many forms do have non-discriminatory questions that yield the same kind of useful information as discriminatory questions. Employers could incorporate these into their job application forms to bring themselves into compliance with the law. The same lessons also generally apply to North American employers, given the high degree of comparability between American, Canadian, and New Zealand anti-discrimination laws. (shrink)

Natural death act legislation which is intended to assist patients who wish to refuse or limit medical treatment may actually erode patients' rights. By use of a 'living will' the legislation intends to extend the patients' role in decision-making to the time when patients can no longer speak for themselves. However, the legislation erodes and constricts the right of refusal. The erosion is the result of two sets of conditions found in the legislation. The first requires that the patient be (...) qualified and certified by others before interventions can be withdrawn or withheld. The second delineates the physical condition which must be present before a living will can be followed. Patients have had to seek the assistance of the courts to enforce their common law rights of refusal of treatment against these requirements. Legislation is needed, but greater care must be taken to avoid the creation of a Kafkaesque legal nightmare for those we intend to assist. (shrink)

A sociologist examines contemporary engagements of queer bodies and identities with fertility biomedicine. Drawing on social science, media culture, and the author’s own empirical research, three questions frame the analysis: 1. In what ways have queers on the gendered margins moved into the center and become implicated or central users of biomedicine’s fertility offerings? 2. In what ways is Fertility Inc. transformed by its own incorporation of various gendered and queered bodies and identities? And 3. What are the biosocial and (...) bioethical implications of expanded queer engagements and possibilities with Fertility Inc.? The author argues that “patient” activism through web 2.0 coupled with a largely unregulated free-market of assisted reproduction has included various queer identities as “parents-in-waiting.” Such inclusions raise a set of ethical tensions regarding how to be accountable to the many people implicated in this supply and demand industry. (shrink)

Excerpt from Traites de Legislation Civile Et PenaleMais ce n'est pas un panegyrique que je fais. Il faut bien avouer que le soin d'arranger et de polir a peu d' attraits pour le genie de l'auteur. Tant qu'il est pousse par une force creatrice, il ne sent que le plaisir de la composition. S'agit-il de donner des formes, de rediger, de finir, il n'en sent plus que la fatigue. Que l'ouvrage soit interrompu, le mal est irreparable: le charme disparait, le (...) degout succede, et la passion eteinte ne se rallume que pour un objet nouveau.La meme disposition l'a eloigne de contribuer a la redaction que je donne au public; je n'ai pu Obtenir que rarement les eclaircissements et les secours dont j'avais besoin il lui en coutait tr0p de suspendre le cours actuel de ses idees pour revenir sur d'anciennes traces.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has expanded both in number and scope over the past 2 decades. Initially carried out to avoid the birth of children with severe genetic disease, PGD is now used for a variety of medical and non-medical purposes. While some human studies have concluded that PGD is safe, animal studies and a recent human study suggest that the embryo biopsy procedure may result in neurological problems for the offspring. Given that the long-term (...) safety of PGD has not been clearly established in humans, this study sought to determine how PGD safety is presented to prospective patients by means of a detailed website analysis. The websites of 262 US fertility centres performing PGD were analysed and comments about safety and risk were catalogued. Results of the analysis demonstrated that 78.2% of centre websites did not mention safety or risk of PGD at all. Of the 21.8% of centres that did contain safety or risk information about PGD, 28.1% included statements highlighting the potential risks, 38.6% presented information touting the procedure as safe and 33.3% included statements highlighting potential risks and the overall safety of the procedure. Thus, 86.6% of PGD-performing centres state that PGD is safe and/or fail to disclose any risks on their websites despite the fact that the impact of the procedure on the long-term health of offspring is unproven. This lack of disclosure suggests that informed consent is inadequate; this study examines numerous factors that are likely to inhibit comprehensive discussions of safety. (shrink)

In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy have enabled many to achieve their dreams of parenthood. With a turnover of $500 million, reproductive tourism in India has helped transform the country into a “global baby factory.” However, as the surrogacy industry grew, so did concerns of women’s exploitation, commodification of motherhood, and human rights violations. In an effort to prevent women from being exploited, the Indian government had taken successive administrative measures to regulate surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 (...) and Assisted Reproductive Technologies Bill 2008 were introduced in the Parliament to regulate various aspects of surrogacy arrangements. Yet, it was not until 25 January 2022, that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 went into effect. The Act does, however, leave certain important points unaddressed. The article claims that the legislation’s purposeful exclusion of the LGBTQ population and emphasis on “familial altruism” stinks of inequity and moral conservatism. It also delineates the mechanics of altruistic surrogacy by examining documents that illustrate how the connections between money and morality are framed via the framing of altruism. The article therefore demands that a comprehensive dialogue must be held considering the socio-economic realities of Indian society, or else India risks enacting yet another law that cannot be implemented or that society dislikes. (shrink)

In the modern world, technology has enabled us to understand the connections between the menstrual cycle and female fertility and to observe the reproductive process even from conception. Unable to see inside the living body, however, eighteenth-century people imagined reproduction and fertility holistically. Their understanding of fertility was inseparable from the way in which they imagined the inner-workings of the humoral body. Although menstruation was understood to be connected to reproduction, it was considered unreliable, a peripheral indicator of fertility. Above (...) all, the best marker of a woman’s fecundity was good overall health. (shrink)

This corpus analysis of linguistic and semantic features in French parliamentary debates concerning online hate speech regulation, highlights tensions between state powers and private rights. Two key themes are identified: first, the _problem of definition_: how such online content is defined in the debates, and second, the _problem of regulation_: how the debates negotiate the supra-jurisdictional and individual jurisdiction issues involved, in regulating both the global online content and the responsibilities of the owners of the platforms who manage the content. (...) For this analysis, the authors created a corpus of French National Assembly Examination Committee discussions and public sessions between July 2019 to January 2020 discussing the _Loi Avia _(Avia Law). The corpus was analysed using quali-quantitative methods. Overall, the study combines a top-down (global) and a bottom-up (local) analysis of the data, applying corpus semantic approaches (Lecolle et al. in Langages 210(2):35–54, 2018; Rastier in The Routledge handbook of semantics, Routledge, pp 507–522, 2015) to contextualize the analysis of the meta-discourse (Hyland in Meta-discourse: exploring interaction in writing, 1st ed. Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Collections, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350063617 ). The analysis highlights the linguistic features revealing the power dynamics inherent within the discourse and counter-discourse of the dominant and opposition political parties respectively. (shrink)

Our objective is to test an optimality model of human fertility that specifies the behavioral requirements for fitness maximization in order (a) to determine whether current behavior does maximize fitness and, if not, (b) to use the specific nature of the behavioral deviations from fitness maximization towards the development of models of evolved proximate mechanisms that may have maximized fitness in the past but lead to deviations under present conditions. To test the model we use data from a representative (...) sample of 7,107 men living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 1990 and 1993. The model we test proposes that low fertility in modern settings maximizes number of grandchildren as a result of a trade-off between parental fertility and next generation fertility. Results do not show the optimization, although the data do reveal a trade-off between parental fertility and offspring education and income.We propose that two characteristics of modern economies have led to a period of sustained fertility reduction and to a corresponding lack of association between income and fertility. The first is the direct link between costs of investment and wage rates due to the forces of supply and demand for labor in competitive economies. The second is the increasing emphasis on cumulative knowledge, skills, and technologies in the production of resources. Together they produce historically novel conditions. These two features of modern economies may interact with evolved psychological and physiological mechanisms governing fertility and parental investment to produce behavior that maximizes the economic productivity of lineages at the expense of fitness. If cognitive processes evolved to track diminishing returns to parental investment and if physiological processes evolved to regulate fertility in response to nutritional state and patterns of breast feeding, we might expect non-adaptive responses when returns from parental investment do not diminish until extremely high levels are reached. With high economic payoffs from parental investment, people have begun to exercise cognitive regulation of fertility through contraception and family planning practices. Those cognitive processes maynot have evolved to handle fitness trade-offs between fertility and parental investment. (shrink)

"The Austin of the Jurisprudence of Administrative Law" This book originated as a series of lectures presented at Johns Hopkins in 1915. It proposes a method to supplement the established doctrine of constitutional law, which enforces legislative norms through negation and review, by a system of positive principles that would guide the making of statutes and give more definite meaning and content to the concept of due process. Highly regarded since its original publication in 1917 and the winner of Harvard (...) Law School's Ames Prize in 1919, it went on to become a standard work. It was recommended, to cite two examples, in Roscoe Pound's Introduction to American Law (1919) and Arthur Vanderbilt's Studying Law (1945). A comment published at the end of Freund's career summarizes a general opinion: "The great quality which Ernst Freund brought to the study of administrative law was his capacity for analysis. He was the Austin of the jurisprudence of administrative law." -W.I.J., Law Quarterly Review 49 (1933): 588. Ernst Freund [1864-1932] was Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Law at the University of Chicago. He is widely considered to be responsible for the development of administrative law in the United States. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Legislative sovereignty is often discussed with one eye on the past and one eye on the procedural functions of law-making in the present. This limits the scope for a conceptual understanding of legislative sovereignty and hinders its theoretical progress. This article argues that legislative sovereignty contains within it the concept of an idol and that understanding the scope and impact of the idol of sovereignty is necessary for future development in this field. Theories from Kant, Nietzsche, von Mises and (...) Derrida are used to offer a divergent critique of legislative sovereignty while the author calls for a move towards a nuanced view of legislative and Parliamentary Sovereignty to account for its idolism. The key factor preventing the development of a truly nuanced and reflective theory of sovereignty is the devotion to former idols which are inoperable and inconsistent with modern geopolitical, inter-state relationships. The author also argues that our knowledge of sovereignty is synthetic a priori and that development in this area can only be by reason, as knowledge derived experientially is subject to the Kantian Transcendental Idealism. (shrink)