A Graceful Exit: Redefining Terminal to Expand the Availability of Physician-Facilitated Suicide

For almost ten years, Oregon stood alone as the state that permits terminally ill persons to choose the time and manner of their deaths. Finally, in 2009, Oregon received company when the state of Washington’s physician facilitated suicide statute officially went into effect in March of that year. Supporters of the statutes hailed the enactments as a victory for persons seeking to die with dignity. Persons from groups like Compassion & Choices vowed to seek similar legislation in the remaining states. Representatives from the Washington State Medical Association, hospice groups and hospitals argued that the mandates of the statutes place physicians in an unnatural position. In particular, the Medical Association’s spokesman stated that physicians take an oath to save lives, not to end them. The number of persons in the country who support physician-facilitated suicide has continued to grow. At the end of 2009, the Montana Supreme Court indicated that physician-facilitated suicide is not against the state’s public policy. In this article, instead of joining the debate about the legalization of physician assisted suicide, I analyzed the law in Oregon and Washington. That analysis shows that the legislatures in those states attempted to regulate the process in order to protect the interests of terminally ill patients and physicians

Changing the Bathwater and Keeping the Baby: Exploring New Ways of Evaluating Intent in Environmental Discrimination Cases

This paper is divided into four parts. Part one consists of a general overview of the problem of environmental discrimination. Part two gives a brief discussion of relevant Equal Protection jurisprudence. The section begins with a summary of general Equal Protection law. Then, the section analyzes the primary cases that established the foundation of modem-day Equal Protection doctrine. Part three examines the current application of the intent requirement in environmental discrimination cases. To that end, the section reviews the outcome of three of the early environmental discrimination cases, and speculates about the components that are necessary to prepare a successful Equal Protection challenge in the environmental arena. Part four consists of an extensive analysis of the debate over the validity of the intent requirement. The section starts by encapsulating a few of the proposed theories put forth to replace or modify the intent requirement. The section ends with my suggestion for refining the current application of the intent standard to make the process fairer to the plaintiffs in environmental discrimination cases

Analysing the Extraterritorial Application of the National Environmental Policy Act

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of whether, in light of Congress\u27 actions and the judicial precedents, NEPA should be applied extraterritorially. Section One discusses the extraterritorial application of United States laws in general, the bases supporting the extraterritorial application, and the tests courts have relied upon to determine the appropriateness of extraterritorial application. The section also explores the presumption against extraterritoriality and the logic behind it. In the second section, the paper addresses the extraterritorial application of NEPA. That sections includes an analysis of the congressional, executive and judicial treatment of the issue. The third section analyses the pros and cons of applying NEPA extraterritorially. Section four speculates about the future of NEPA\u27s extraterritorial application relying upon proposed actions by Congress and the Executive branch, and upon judicial precedent. The paper concludes that NEPA should be applied extraterritorially when the United States agencies\u27 actions have environmental impact in foreign countries. That conclusion will be supported by several factors including: (1) since NEPA is a procedural statute, the potential for conflict with foreign laws is minimal; (2) the language of NEPA indicates that Congress was concerned with the global environment; and (3) the reasoning the courts have used to apply antitrust laws extraterritorially is applicable to NEPA

You Belong To Me : Unscrambling The Legal Ramifications of Recognizing a Property Right in Frozen Human Eggs

This article is divided into four parts. Part I includes a discussion of just a few examples of when babies conceived as a result of surrogacy arrangements have been treated like personal property. Part II explains the process that makes human oocyte cryopreservation a viable option for young women and also explores the ways that human eggs may end up in the marketplace. Part III examines the options open to courts with regard to the extent of a woman\u27s property interest in her frozen eggs. Part IV contains an analysis of some of the property law causes of action that may be available to women in the event that frozen human eggs are classified as property

Analysing the Extraterritorial Application of the National Environmental Policy Act

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of whether, in light of Congress\u27 actions and the judicial precedents, NEPA should be applied extraterritorially. Section One discusses the extraterritorial application of United States laws in general, the bases supporting the extraterritorial application, and the tests courts have relied upon to determine the appropriateness of extraterritorial application. The section also explores the presumption against extraterritoriality and the logic behind it. In the second section, the paper addresses the extraterritorial application of NEPA. That sections includes an analysis of the congressional, executive and judicial treatment of the issue. The third section analyses the pros and cons of applying NEPA extraterritorially. Section four speculates about the future of NEPA\u27s extraterritorial application relying upon proposed actions by Congress and the Executive branch, and upon judicial precedent. The paper concludes that NEPA should be applied extraterritorially when the United States agencies\u27 actions have environmental impact in foreign countries. That conclusion will be supported by several factors including: (1) since NEPA is a procedural statute, the potential for conflict with foreign laws is minimal; (2) the language of NEPA indicates that Congress was concerned with the global environment; and (3) the reasoning the courts have used to apply antitrust laws extraterritorially is applicable to NEPA

Three Lies and a Truth: Adjudicating Maternity in Surrogacy Disputes

Historically, courts were called on to answer the following question: What makes a man a legal father? Courts applied different presumptions to arrive at the answer. For example, if the case involved a married couple, the woman\u27s husband was presumed to be the legal father.1 In situations involving an unmarried woman, the man who helped to conceive the child was the legal father. While paternity was being litigated, maternity was resolved-the woman who gave birth to the child was the child\u27s legal mother. The phrase “momma\u27s baby, papa\u27s maybe” reflected society\u27s attitude towards maternity. Since the woman who gave birth to the child also supplied the genetic material that created the child, maternity was not usually challenged. Hence, the courts did not have a hard time adjudicating maternity. Advances in reproductive technology have led to a change in the legal landscape. Consequently, two different women may claim to be the legal mother of the same child.6 As usual, the law has been slow to respond to the advances in medicine. This Article is divided into four main Parts. Part II introduces the problem. Part III contains a discussion of the limited role legislatures have played in clarifying the legal status of the women involved in the surrogacy process. Part IV analyzes the tests or standards courts have employed to determine maternity in surrogacy cases. Part V explains the reasons why the best interests of the child standard is the one that courts should apply to determine the legal mother of the child conceived as the result of a surrogacy agreement

Review: Compassionate Care for the Living and the Dying

This is a review of The End of End-of Life Law (92 N.C.L. Rev. 1693 (2014), by Lois L. Shepard. In light of medical advances and increasing health care costs, conversations about end-of-life care will continue to occur. A significant portion of the discussion will focus on ways to handle surrogate decision-making. The practical suggestions Professor Shepherd includes in her article could be a valuable part of that dialogue

Due Date: Enforcing Surrogacy Promises in the Best Interest of the Child

(Excerpt) This Article is not meant to debate whether surrogacy contracts should be legal. The purpose of this Article is to address situations where the surrogate reneges on her promise and attempts to keep the child. In particular, this Article deals with the adjudication of maternity after the surrogate has breached the agreement by failing to turn the child over to the intended parent or parents. This Article is divided into four parts. Part I discusses the current ways courts resolve breaches of surrogacy contracts. Part II evaluates the appropriateness of legal remedies like damages and specific performance when a surrogate breaches the contract. Part III explores the manner in which the equitable remedies of promissory estoppel and unjust enrichment can be utilized to compensate the intended mother after the contract breach. Finally, in Part IV, this Article puts forth a proposal for resolving breaches of surrogacy agreements. This Article contends that contractual surrogacy obligations should be treated like any other contractual obligations. Consequently, courts should take actions to ensure that the intended mother receives the benefit of her bargain by being recognized as the child\u27s legal mother. The appropriate way to accomplish that is to establish a rebuttable presumption that surrogacy contracts should be specifically enforced

Let She Who has the Womb Speak: Regulating the use of Human Oocyte Cryopreservation to the Detriment of Older Women

“Inequality starts in the womb.” When it comes to childbearing, advances in assisted reproductive technology (ART) may negate the veracity of this quote. In her autobiography Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama discusses her struggles with infertility. Mrs. Obama’s difficulty getting pregnant may have stemmed from the fact that she postponed motherhood to focus on her career as a high-powered attorney. At that time, for Mrs. Obama and women of her generation, the focus was on pregnancy prevention instead of procreation preservation. Women feared being placed on the “mommy track,” so they waited to have children until after they had achieved success in their careers

Two Fathers, One Dad: Allocating the Paternal Obligations Between the Men Involved in the Artificial Insemination Process

Nadya Suleman used sperm from a man she knows to conceive fourteen children using assisted reproduction. It is clear that Suleman is the legal mother of the children. The unanswered question is: Are the children legally fatherless? The answer to this question is important because experts predict that it will take well over one million dollars to support the children until they reach the age of majority. My article seeks to provide some insight into the resolution of this issue. Although Suleman did not conceived using artificial insemination, the information examined in my article may be applied to her situation. When the statutory system allocating paternal responsibility was created, a family consisted of a man, a woman and their children. Sexual intercourse and adoption were the main methods of creating a family. Procreation is no longer the exclusive domain of the traditional family. The current paternal statutory scheme is inadequate to address the legal consequences resulting from the existence of artificially conceived children because it focuses too much on protecting the reproductive rights of the men involved in the process and ignores the needs of the children that are conceived. Under the majority of state artificial insemination statutes, the question asked is: Has the man consented to be a legal parent by written agreement or by his actions? The question that should be asked is: Is it in the best interest of the child that the man be considered the legal parent? Instead of focusing exclusively upon the man\u27s right to choose whether or not to be a parent, the state legislatures should take steps to ensure that the artificially conceived child has at least two adults who are legally responsible to provide financial support for the child. In order to accomplish that goal, the state legislatures should recognize more than one class of fathers and allocate paternal responsibility based upon the best interests of the artificially conceived child