Contraceptive Sabotage

This Article responds to the alarm recently sounded by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists over “birth control sabotage”—the “active interference [by one partner] with [the other] partner’s contraceptive methods in an attempt to promote pregnancy.” Currently, sabotage is not a crime, and existing categories of criminal offenses fail to capture the essence of the injury it does to victims. This Article argues that sabotage should be a separate crime—but only when perpetrated against those partners who can and do get pregnant as a result of having sabotaged sex. Using the principle of self-possession—understood as a person’s basic right to self-ownership—this Article argues that women have a self-possessory interest in maintaining their reproductive capacity in its non-pregnant state during and after having sex to the extent they seek to establish with the use or planned use of contraception. Sabotage by sexual partners—typically male—violates this interest and merits criminal punishment. This Article proposes statutory language to criminalize sabotage that should be added to the revision of the Model Penal Code currently underway. Not only would this addition likely survive any Equal Protection challenge, it would arguably serve to strengthen the existing constitutional right to non-procreative sex by setting meaningful limits on one partner’s ability to interfere unilaterally with the other partner’s contraceptive decisions

Consumer Rights Screening Tool for Domestic Violence Advocates and Lawyers

The information is this document is intended for use by advocates and attorneys working with survivors of domestic violence in understanding the common types of consumer problems faced by the survivors. The document provides an overview of the common consumer issues faced by survivors and offers solid guidance on how advocates and attorneys can identify these issues when working the survivors. The report begins with an overview of the role of economic abuse in cases of domestic violence. This is followed by a brief look at common consumer issues faced by survivors that include managing household income and expenses, credit reporting, debt collection, foreclosure and eviction, utility access, credit cards and high cost credit, student loan debt, and auto access and ownership. The next section of the report provides information for advocates and attorneys to use in identifying their clients’ consumer needs. This is followed by a list of general and issue-specific screening questions that can be asked of the survivors to provide adequate background information to assist domestic violence advocates and attorneys. Information on additional resources for assisting survivors is also included at the end of the document

Small Dollar Loans, Big Problems: How States Protect Consumers From Abuses and How the Federal Government Can Help

Across America, drivers pass twice as many payday loan storefronts as Starbucks coffee shops.2 In twenty-nine states, there are more payday lender stores than McDonald’s restaurants.3 Numerous research studies warn of the dangers associated with payday loans, including significantly higher rates of bankruptcies, evictions, utility shut-offs, and involuntary bank account closures.4 Many states have recognized the dangers posed by payday and other types of small-dollar loans with predatory features, prompting them to adopt laws to combat the abusive nature of these loans. These laws, however, offer consumers varying degrees of protection. Historically, states have used their police powers to protect consumers from predatory lending. This Article discusses the extent to which each state’s current laws protect consumers from lending abuses associated with four common small-dollar loans: payday loans, auto-title loans, six-month installment loans, and one-year installment loans.5 Specifically, this Article highlights the findings from the 2010 Small Dollar Loan Products Scorecard (Scorecard), which updated the original 2008 Scorecard. 6 Both the 2008 and 2010 Scorecard grade state laws based on the maximum annual percentage rate (APR) they allow for the four typical small-dollar loan products listed above. Since the 2008 Scorecard, there has been significant state legislative activity across the country related to small-dollar loans. Only a handful of states, however, have enacted new measures that adequately protect consumers. This Article provides policy recommendations to guide ongoing reform efforts. The Article highlights three key points. First, states should continue their longstanding good fight on behalf of American families against abusive, small dollar lending, but they need help. Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which President Obama established when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law on July 21, 2010, should join the battle.7 Second, the states and Congress should focus their reform efforts on enacting an across-the-board usury cap of 36% APR on all small-dollar loans. Third, the states, CFPB, and Congress should impose several restrictions on high-cost (over 36% APR), small-dollar lending to help curb its abusive nature. In this Article, Part II describes the methodology used by the 2010 Scorecard. Part III reports the major changes that have occurred in the two years since the Scorecard’s original 2008 publication. Finally, Part IV proposes several policy recommendations, at the state and federal level, with the focus in the latter category on opportunities for action by the newly created CFPB

The Wages of Crying Life: What States Must Do to Protect Children After the Fall of Roe

In the post-Roe world, can a state rationally claim that the value of human life justifies the imposition of abortion bans but does not demand that a state protect the vulnerable young who are “born human beings”—commonly called “minors” or “children”—and are entitled to protection under a state’s laws? This essay advances the claim that it cannot. This essay asks that those who say they are “Pro-life” in politics and law demonstrate that they protect vulnerable life beyond the abortion context, and that they do so in the most minimal fashion: through a demonstrated commitment to protecting the basic welfare of the most vulnerable children. The proposed “wage for crying life” (a play on John Hart Ely’s famous phrase) is a set of remedies for the sake of rationality and for other obvious public ends to be paid by multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders, both public and private, must participate in measuring and meeting basic standards for ensuring the protection of children from child abuse and neglect in a jurisdiction before that jurisdiction may rationally ban abortion. Using the authors’ home state of New Hampshire as a case study, this essay offers an initial application of the proposed broad framework to show how one state’s record of permitting massive child abuse prevents it from rationally claiming the “Pro-Life” status it claims its abortion ban achieves

Captive Markets

Modern county jails have increasingly adopted policies to bill their inmates for some or all of the costs of their room and board. Statutes authorizing counties to implement these “pay-to-stay” programs are on the books in roughly seventy percent of states, yet the financial mechanism on which these programs typically rely is not well understood. Although the pay-to-stay obligation bears some resemblance to familiar citizen-state financial transactions—such as fines and penalties, restitution, taxes, and fees—it usually belongs to a distinct model that this Article calls the “government-imposed loan.” This Article provides an overview of the landscape of pay-to-stay programs and an articulation of the imposed loan model. The Article also assesses the normative desirability of the imposed loan model, focusing primarily on pay-to-stay programs.The imposed loan structure raises concerns in two primary areas: citizen privacy and governmental services. This model requires citizen-borrowers to disclose personal financial information—some of it with a dubious substantive link to the underlying issue for which a given service was provided—to the government on a long-term basis. It also creates some disincentive for these borrowers to work, thus increasing the likelihood that they will consume governmental services in addition to the one for which the loan was imposed. On balance, it does not appear that the familiar structure of a consumer loan translates well for use in captive markets, such as jail housing or emergency services, where citizens essentially have no choice but to consume services provided by the government through its police powers

Sharenthood

From baby pictures in the cloud to a high school's digital surveillance system: how adults unwittingly compromise children's privacy online. Our children's first digital footprints are made before they can walk—even before they are born—as parents use fertility apps to aid conception, post ultrasound images, and share their baby's hospital mug shot. Then, in rapid succession come terabytes of baby pictures stored in the cloud, digital baby monitors with built-in artificial intelligence, and real-time updates from daycare. When school starts, there are cafeteria cards that catalog food purchases, bus passes that track when kids are on and off the bus, electronic health records in the nurse's office, and a school surveillance system that has eyes everywhere. Unwittingly, parents, teachers, and other trusted adults are compiling digital dossiers for children that could be available to everyone—friends, employers, law enforcement—forever. In this incisive book, Leah Plunkett examines the implications of “sharenthood”—adults' excessive digital sharing of children's data. She outlines the mistakes adults make with kids' private information, the risks that result, and the legal system that enables “sharenting.” Plunkett describes various modes of sharenting—including “commercial sharenting,” efforts by parents to use their families' private experiences to make money—and unpacks the faulty assumptions made by our legal system about children, parents, and privacy. She proposes a “thought compass” to guide adults in their decision making about children's digital data: play, forget, connect, and respect. Enshrining every false step and bad choice, Plunkett argues, can rob children of their chance to explore and learn lessons. The Internet needs to forget. We need to remember

Mentor Relationships Play Key Role in Attorney Readiness

Law schools have been criticized for not doing enough to help their students develop the practical skills they need to practice law. Although mentoring and the apprenticeship model has deep and noble roots in the legal profession, this has withered somewhat in the wake of the Great Recession as scarce resources have put pressure on legal employers not to hire new attorneys or train them rigorously. This article explores some ways that New Hampshire defies this recent trend and specifically examines some of the programs at UNH Law that have garnered national attention