Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb draws upon the outrage many people felt in response to a video allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal body parts and tissue from abortions (video that was subsequently revealed to be edited so as to be intentionally misleading) in order to discuss a different area in which tissue and parts are bought and sold without evoking such broad outrage.
Former counsel to the president John W. Dean continues his dialogue with attorney and author Jim Robenalt to discuss Robenalt’s new book, January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever. In this second of a two-part series of columns, Robenalt focuses on new information he discovered relating to the history Roe v. Wade decision.
Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton discusses the position of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with respect to contraception.
Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb discusses a recent criminal case out of Indiana, in which a woman was convicted and sentenced for feticide. Colb argues that while the situation as a whole is a tragedy, it also highlights a failure of the State of Indiana to have empathy for women in pain whose circumstances call for mercy rather than a pure retributive impulse.
Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb discusses how a pro-choice position on the issue of abortion might be reconciled with the position that a mother may rightfully grieve over a miscarriage.
Hofstra University law professor Joanna Grossman discusses a recent ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court obfuscating, rather than clarifying, that state’s laws on surrogacy agreements.
Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb discusses a recent decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sustaining an as-applied constitutional challenge to a Mississippi law requiring “admitting privileges” for physicians who provide abortions. Colb explains the panel majority’s creative, albeit convincing, reasoning and critically analyzes the dissenting opinion.
Cardozo Law professor Marci Hamilton comments on a recent move by the Satanic Temple seeking exemption from coercive informed consent laws citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. Hamilton describes the Catholic bishops’ apprehension toward the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) when it was being considered over twenty years ago and how quickly they got behind it after it passed. Finally, Hamilton describes how clear it is now that RFRA cuts both ways.
Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., and the nature of the respondents’ claim that IUDs and morning-after pills are abortifacients. Colb analogizes to the distinction between the culpability of direct violence and failure to rescue in order to illustrate that the respondents’ claims are moral rather than factual in basis.
Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Sherry Colb comments on the situation of a pregnant 33-year-old woman in Texas whose family has been unable to have her removed from life support, notwithstanding her wishes and those of her family. The obstacle is a Texas law that prohibits the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient. Colb contends that while political groups have weighed in—in predictable ways, corresponding to their views regarding abortion—in fact we should analyze the dilemma as in some respects, legally and morally distinct from the situation that confronts us in the abortion context, as she explains.
Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton contends that we are in the midst of a war over whether the U.S. Catholic Bishops and those who agree with them, or individual women, will control women’s bodies and health. Hamilton comments on the influence of Pope Francis. She also argues that there are two major battlefields in this war right now: one in the workplace, and the other in Catholic hospitals. Hamilton ends, too, with an account of the terrible labor of a woman who suffered unnecessarily due to these conflicts.
Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on instances of real-life and fictional complications regarding sperm donation. The fictional story is told through the Vince Vaughan film Deliveryman. The real-life stories are told on a new MTV show, Generation Cryo, which depicts the quest of a teenage girl to meet her fifteen half-siblings and the anonymous sperm donor responsible for all of their conceptions.
Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Sherry Colb considers important ways in which fetal-protection laws both resemble, and differ from, abortion laws, along with the implications that such differences might have for the relative legitimacy of fetal-protection legislation.
Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton contends that Catholic and evangelical leaders are waging a new war against the use of contraception, enlisting public relations experts, lobbyists, and lawyers, despite the fact that very large majorities of Americans support contraception. One strategy, Hamilton notes, involves “conscience clauses” that would, for instance, allow pharmacists not to hand over contraceptives if it violates the pharmacist’s own anti-contraception beliefs.
Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Sherry Colb comments on the United States Supreme Court’s June grant of certiorari in Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice. The new case confronts the regulation of medically induced abortion and, Colb predicts, may prove to be important and surprising. Colb provides a particular focus here on Justice Kennedy’s possible views on abortion issues.
Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Sherry Colb comments on recent laws enacted by several states banning abortion procedures at 20 weeks post-fertilization (or 22 weeks after a pregnant woman’s last menstrual period or “LMP”), and a similar federal measure passed by the House of Representatives, the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (PCUCPA), which would—in the unlikely event that it passed—yield a national prohibition against abortion at 20 weeks post-fertilization (with various exceptions). Some see such laws as a way to subtly advance a pro-life agenda, but Colb notes that an emphasis on the importance of pain, sentience, and suffering in morality surely should, especially, make us ask why we ignore the terrible suffering of the animals we use for food, when we should, instead, Colb contends—focusing on pain—choose to become vegan.
Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman explains the specific provisions of, and the keen need for, the bill that Governor Cuomo of New York has recently proposed, which is entitled the Women's Equality Act (WEA). Pointing to two hypothetical babies, a boy and a girl, Cuomo notes that the girl's life will be marked with risks and forms of discrimination that the boy will never have to suffer. The bill, Cuomo contends, will help level the playing field for girls and women, via changes in the law in ten different areas, each of which Grossman comments upon.
Justia columnist and Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman comments on two states’ decisions to pass abortion laws despite the fact that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, it is very clear that these new laws are unconstitutional. Grossman explains the relevant tenets of constitutional law regarding abortion, and details exactly why both North Dakota’s and Arkansas’s laws flout the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents. Grossman also covers other abortion laws that have been passed by state legislatures despite their very clear unconstitutionality, and notes that the new laws do not gibe with public opinion regarding abortion rights.
Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on last week's issuance by, the Obama Administration, of revised HHS regulations that accommodate religious organizations that object to providing contraception and abortion services as part of their requirement to provide health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Hamilton explains the exemption, its four criteria, and how the rules work. She also notes that the religious exemption does not apply to for-profit entities, and likely will be held not to apply to nonprofit entities, either. The reason the exemption likely does not apply, Hamilton explains, is that employers are completely out of the loop, with the health insurance issue (including issues regarding contraception and abortion) now solely an issue, under the regulations, between a woman and her doctor.
Justia columnist and Cornell law professor Michael Dorf continues his two-part series of columns on Roe v. Wade on its 40th anniversary. Here, in Part Two of Dorf’s two-part series, he addresses a common criticism that has been voiced by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, prior to her joining the Court, and by others as well: the criticism that Roe went too far, too fast and that having more of a dialogue beforehand might have led to less controversy surrounding the decision. Dorf disagrees with this criticism of Roe and its timing, contending (1) that the criticism may well have been mistaken from the very beginning, and (2) that the passage of forty years since Roe was handed down has surely and clearly refuted the too far, too fast critique of Roe. (Part One of Dorf's series on Roe appeared on January 17 here on Justia’s Verdict.)
