Human Rights - Bill of Health

United States Capitol Building - Washington, DC.

How Comparative Law Can Counter Threats to the ‘Most Successful Global Health Program in Modern History’

September 29, 2023September 29, 2023 Joelle Boxer 2 Comments

By Joelle Boxer

PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is under threat. Some members of Congress are withholding reauthorization support while arguing, without evidence, that PEPFAR funds abortion.

This is untrue: U.S. law prohibits PEPFAR from funding abortion. That alone should resolve the current impasse and secure the program’s reauthorization. Should bad faith opponents require further reassurance, however, they need look no further than the local legal realities of the 25 countries and 3 regions where PEPFAR operates.

Hand with a red napkin washes the chalk board.

A European Cancer Survivors’ Right to be Forgotten?

September 28, 2023September 28, 2023 Hannah van Kolfschooten Leave a comment

By Hannah van Kolfschooten and Mirko Faccioli

There are currently over 12 million cancer survivors in Europe. Due to improving cancer screening methods and medical treatment, this number is expected to grow every year. Former cancer patients often face multiple forms of discrimination throughout their lives. Many commercial companies make long-term cancer survivors “pay twice” – while having similar life expectancies as their peers, they are denied access to key services because of their former cancer status.

To combat this unfair practice, some European countries are establishing a “cancer survivors’ right to be forgotten,” also referred to as the “oncological right to be forgotten.” Italy’s parliament just passed a law to establish the right. Patients’ rights organizations and EU institutions are pushing for a “European cancer survivors’ right to be forgotten.” This post outlines the purpose of such a right and flags potential challenges in its adoption.

Puebla, Mexico - September 28, 2020: With green scarves, members of feminist collectives demonstrate in the streets of the Historic Center of Puebla to demand the legalization of abortion.

Sex Equality in #SeptiembreVerde: Examining the Mexican Supreme Court’s Abortion Decriminalization Decision

September 25, 2023September 25, 2023 Joelle Boxer Leave a comment

By Joelle Boxer

Earlier this month, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a ruling decriminalizing abortion nationwide, setting a powerful example in the global trend of abortion law liberalization, including on the grounds of sex equality.

Hailed as “incredible” by reproductive justice advocates, the decision will be most impactful in the 20 Mexican states where local laws still criminalize abortion, potentially removing access barriers for more than 42 million women.

This article will explain the origins of the case, what the decision holds, and what it says about sex equality.

a man waves an intersex-inclusive progress pride flag in the wind on the sky.

Certainty and Uncertainty in Trans-Intersex Science Politics

September 22, 2023September 22, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Maayan Sudai

Joanna Wuest’s Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement describes the evolution of the “born this way” framework through pivotal moments in the history of the LGBTQI+ movement.

A central theme of the book’s analysis is the role that “certainty” and “uncertainty” play in the legitimation of science-based policy regarding sexuality and gender issues. Uncertainty of what might happen has been pitted against LGBTQI+ reforms, from when conservative researchers and practitioners argued the exposure of young children to an openly gay guardian or schoolteacher could be harmful (p.92), to present-day attempts to leverage uncertainty to block trans access to sex-segregated bathrooms, prisons, and shelters (p.181).

Medical Caduceus Symbol as Scales with backlight over Wall in dark room.

Gender-Affirming Care, Abortion, and the Politics of Science: A Response to Wuest’s ‘Born this Way’

September 21, 2023September 21, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Aziza Ahmed

On August 21, 2023, the 11^th Circuit issued a decision that allowed a ban on transgender care to go into effect in Alabama. The Alabama ban, formally called the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, is one of the most extreme of the many bans on gender affirming care. The law defines sex as the “biological state of being female or male, based on sex organs, chromosomes and endogenous hormone profiles…genetically encoded into a person at the moment of conception…” and targets physicians who might undermine this notion of sex with criminal prosecution. Their punishment could be up to ten years in prison.

SACRAMENTO, CA, U.S.A. - OCTOBER 9, 2021: A mother and child march with Proud Mom and Trans Rights are Human Rights signs during the National Trans Visibility March.

Protecting Trans Children: Scientific Uncertainty and Legal Debates Over Child Custody and Access to Care

September 20, 2023September 20, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Marie-Amélie George

A tweet turned Luna Younger’s personal struggle into a national controversy. Using 148 characters, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services would be investigating the seven-year-old’s family. Prompting his declaration was a jury’s award of custody to Luna’s mother, Anne Georgulas, a pediatrician who supported Luna’s gender transition. A year before the case made its way into court, Luna had asked her parents to call her Luna, rather than her (traditionally male) legal name, to reflect her gender identity. That same year, a therapist diagnosed Luna with gender dysphoria, which is distress from the mismatch between a person’s assigned sex at birth and their gender identity. As a result, medical professionals recommended that Luna be referred to as “she” and be allowed to wear the feminine clothing and keep the long hair that she preferred. Luna’s father, Jeffrey Younger, registered his objection to Luna’s gender identity by shaving her head, even as he allowed Luna’s twin brother to maintain his locks. Georgulas petitioned for an order prohibiting her ex-husband from “engaging in non-affirming behavior and/or taking Luna outside the home as [her birth name], or allowing others to do so.” Jeffrey Younger counterclaimed for sole legal custody.

Washington, DC, USA - December 1, 2021: Abortion rights rally at the Supreme Court, Jackson Women's Health v. Dobbs.

Biological Determinism, Scientific Uncertainty, and Reproductive Rights

September 19, 2023September 27, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Mary Ziegler

As Joanna Wuest writes, the role played by science in the LGBTQ+ movement “is at once a celebratory and cautionary story.” Something similar could be said of struggles over reproductive rights in the half century since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade.

Today, after decades of staying on the sidelines, physicians have once again been at the forefront of struggles over abortion, launching a ballot initiative in Ohio, bringing lawsuits, and speaking against state criminal bans. Physicians’ investment in the struggle — and the scientific arguments they bring to bear — seem like a possible turning point in future struggles over reproductive rights and justice. After all, medical professionals have both special expertise and political capital that could make a difference at a time when disapproval of abortion bans is already high.

But history suggests that arguments based on science have played a far messier role in struggles over reproductive rights. As often as scientific evidence has advanced reproductive rights, abortion foes have used claims about scientific uncertainty to justify new restrictions — and have harnessed claims of biological difference to assert that there is no connection between sex equality and abortion.

MONTREAL, CANADA -16 AUG 2015- The annual Fierte Montreal parade took place on August 16, 2015 on Boulevard Rene Levesque in Central Montreal. It is the largest Gay Pride in the Francophone world.

“Born This Way,” LGBTQ+ Rights, and the Politics of Uncertainty

September 18, 2023September 18, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Joanna Wuest

“Medical uncertainty” is no straightforward matter when it comes to LGBTQ+ health and civil rights. Take for instance the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals 2020 decision striking down a pair of municipal ordinances in Florida that had banned so-called “conversion therapy” for minors (contemporary psychology’s preferred nomenclature is “sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts”). In an enormous blow to the evidence-based notion that such change efforts are harmful — they are indeed responsible for much trauma and death — two Trump-appointed judges declared that the science of sexual orientation and gender identity was much too uncertain to justify the bans. Gesturing to the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) renowned 1973 removal of homosexuality from its list of disorders, the judges explained that “it is not uncommon for professional organizations to do an about-face in response to new evidence or new attitudes.” Ergo, because the APA had changed its mind once fifty years ago, it may just as easily reverse itself again. According to this view, we may one day wake up to find that mental health professionals have reclassified queerness as a malady to be cured rather than a sense of self to be embraced and protected by law.

New York NY USA-July 8, 2023 Advertising for the Warner Bros. Pictures Barbie film in Times Square in New York.

Barbie’s Utopia and (the Absence of) Social Rights

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023 Alma Beltrán y Puga 2 Comments

By Alma Beltrán y Puga

Is Barbie feminist? Is Greta Gerwig’s script based on ideas of gender equality? The movie is certainly appreciated for promoting a global discussion on feminist ideas and gender roles. But answering these questions is complicated. Barbie opens in a version of a feminist utopia: a world where women are rulers and men servants. These inverted political gender roles are based on radical feminist theories that consider women’s liberation will only be possible when feminist values, such as care and dialogue, are taken seriously, and women in power embrace them. However, Barbie Land is a portrait of this feminist fantasy with too much pink and a very basic liberal idea of the State: civil and political rights are the fundamental rights of society.

WASHINGTON, DC - OCT. 8, 2019: Rally for LGBTQ rights outside Supreme Court as Justices hear oral arguments in three cases dealing with discrimination in the workplace because of sexual orientation.

303 Creative, Transgender Rights, and the Ongoing Culture Wars

July 27, 2023July 27, 2023 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Michael R. Ulrich

The Supreme Court’s ruling in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis suggests a willingness to ignore the rights and health implications for minority populations under the guise of protecting against theoretical harms. The decision is a crucial blow to strides made in achieving gay rights, and may bolster other attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. As laws that restrict the rights of transgender people in the U.S. face challenges in court, the legal, public health, medical, and bioethics communities have an essential role to play both in properly framing the legal issue, as well as explaining what is truly at stake in these cases to minimize the chances of similarly harmful rulings for the transgender community moving forward.

Category: Human Rights