Month: November 2014

Personhood Measures in the 2014 Election Cycle

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jonathan F. Will
[Cross-posted at The Conversation]

Citizens of three states had the opportunity to vote on measures considered by many to be adverse to abortion rights during the November 2014 election cycle.  While the personhood efforts in Colorado and North Dakota failed, the Tennessee electorate approved an amendment making clear that their state constitution does not protect a right to abortion, and expressly authorizing the state legislature to regulate abortion services.

Unlike the amendment that passed in Tennessee, the state constitutional amendments proposed in Colorado and North Dakota said nothing explicitly about abortion.  Instead, the measures sought to extend the protections associated with a “right to life” to human beings at all stages of development.  Of course, by extending this aspect of legal personhood to the preborn, abortion necessarily becomes problematic.  But these types of personhood measures have failed in every state to attempt them, including Mississippi, which is considered by many to be the most conservative (and anti-abortion rights) state in the country.  So why are personhood measures failing even while the Tennessee amendment passed?  Read More

Tomorrow: Law and Ethics of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

DNA_3helixesThe Law and Ethics of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing

November 6, 2014 12:00 PM

Harvard Law School
Wasserstein Hall, Room 3018
Cambridge, MA 02138 [Map]

See the list of panelists here.

The Petrie-Flom Center will host a discussion of the issues surrounding noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), a screening method for detecting certain specific chromosomal abnormalities, as well as sex, in utero.  NIPT may help mothers avoid other tests that could put their pregnancies at risk, but the ability to detect substantial information about a developing fetus with such ease raises a wide range of important ethical and legal issues.  Our discussion will cover background on the technology, what makes NIPT unique, issues with global dissemination, eugenics concerns and legislative responses.

This event is supported by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

Upcoming Event: “Patients with Passports” Book Launch

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Cohen_Medical_TourismBook Launch: Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Harvard Law School Library
Langdell Hall, Caspersen Room
1557 Massachsetts Ave., Cambridge, MA [Map]

This event is free and open to the public. A light lunch will be served.

I. Glenn Cohen‘s new book Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics  (Oxford University Press, 2014) is the first comprehensive legal and ethical analysis of medical tourism. Examining both the legal and ethical issues raised by medical tourism and how the two interact, it provides the best currently available data and explanations of the industry and tackles the most prevalent legal and ethical issues facing medical tourism today.

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library.

Tomorrow: Global Reproduction

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

pregnant_bellyGlobal Reproduction: Health, Law, and Human Rights in Surrogacy and Egg Donation
November 5, 2014, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Room 1010, Harvard Law School

Please join us for a screening of the documentary Can We See the Baby Bump, Please?, followed by a panel discussion of the legal and human rights issues surrounding surrogacy and egg donation in a global context.

The film screening will begin at 5PM; the panel discussion will begin at 6PM.  Feel free to join for one or both segments. The panelists are:

We encourage attendees to read Risk Disclosure and the Recruitment of Oocyte Donors: Are Advertisers Telling the Full Story? prior to the event.

Co-sponsored by Our Bodies, Ourselves and the South Asia Institute at Harvard University, with support by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund.

The Constitutional Implications of Ebola: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights In Times of Health Crises

Michele Goodwin Leave a comment

Join us for an important public forum:

Constitutional Implications of Ebola:
Civil Liberties & Civil Rights In Times of Health Crises

This public forum addresses the constitutional and public health implications of Ebola response in the United States.  According to state and federal laws, patient information is deemed private and is to be held in strict confidentiality.  However, in the wake of Ebola, well-established protocols to guard patient privacy have been neglected or suspended without public debate.  At this forum, a panel of experts raise questions not only about how to contain the disease, but also to what extent Americans value their healthcare privacy, civil liberties, and civil rights.  To what extent are Americans’ Ebola fears influenced by the origins of the disease?  What liberties are Americans willing to sacrifice to calm their fears?  How to balance the concern for public welfare with legal and ethical privacy principles?

Speakers: Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.;  Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Chair, UC Irvine School of Law;  Professor Andrew Noymer, UC Irvine School of Public Health; and Dr. George Woods, American Psychiatric Association.

This Forum intervenes in the current national and international discourse on Ebola by probing law’s role in addressing public health crises.  This forum is free and open to the public.

WHEN: Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 3.30pm-5.30pm

WHERE: University of California Irvine, School of Law; ROOM EDU 1111, 401 E Peltason Dr, Irvine, CA 92612

Call for Abstracts: 2015 Petrie-Flom Annual Conference – Law, Religion, and American Health Care

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

SCOTUSfrontThe Petrie-Flom Center invites abstracts for its 2015 Annual Conference: “Law, Religion, and American Health Care.” The conference will be held at Harvard Law School on May 8 and 9, 2014.

This conference, and anticipated edited volume, will aim to: (1) identify the various ways in which law intersects with religion and health care in the United States; (2) understand the role of law in creating or mediating conflict between religion and health care; and (3) explore potential legal solutions to allow religion and health care to simultaneously flourish in a culturally diverse nation.

For a full conference description, including the call for abstracts and registration information, please visit our website.

Abstracts are due by December 1, 2014. The conference seeks to address the following topics. Please note that this list is not meant to be exhaustive; we hope to receive papers related to the conference’s general theme, but not specifically listed here:  Read More