AP reported yesterday that a ruling of the EU’s top court severely restricts biotech companies from turning a profit on stem cell patents in which embryos are used. Surprisingly, the court responded not to religious groups or anti-abortion groups, but to the environmental group Greenpeace. Greenpeace had challenged a 1997 patent on a technique developed by […]
The San Jose Articles were presented at a UN briefing today. The Articles, which challenge the widespread claims that international law supports a right to abortion, were discussed by Robert George and Grover Joseph Rees. See www.sanjosearticles.org. Richard M.
Earlier this year I posted a link to an editorial arguing that fathers should have a right to veto the abortion of their children. I noted that the US Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvania law that required husbands be notified of a wife’s intent to have an abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, notwithstanding that notification could be avoided by […]
Over at Public Discourse, in his new post, Reflections of a Questioner (http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/10/4055), Robert George evaluates the answers of Ron Paul and Mitt Romney to George’s question about what legislation each presidental candidate would propose to overturn Roe v. Wade. Professor George notes that this question raises a fundamental constitutional issue regarding the role of […]
SSRN has a new article entitled The Jurisprudence of Dignity (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1928768). The author, Leslie Meltzer Henry, identifies the variety of meanings given to the word “dignity” in Supreme Court cases: institutional status as dignity, liberty as dignity, equality as dignity, personal integrity as dignity, and collective virtue as dignity. The article reveals that the Court’s […]
Legalized PAS and the Werther Effect Evidence suggests that legalized PAS will result in a greater number of suicides more generally (and not simply amongst the population who opt for legalized PAS). We will have great difficulty, on the one hand, giving our and medicine’s approval to suicide as the solution to complex problems at […]
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abortion and mental health
Courtesy of the National Right to Life News, here is a story discussing a new journal article on the link between abortion and mental health. http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/09/study-in-prestigious-journal-shows-abortion-harms-women%e2%80%99s-mental-health/#more-4996 Richard M.
The issue of assisted suicide seemed to have been settled in Canada in 1993 by the Supreme Court decision in the case of Sue Rodriguez. In a five to four decision the Court ruled that the state’s obligation to protect the vulnerable outweighed the rights of individuals to self-determination. Now two new cases, one from British Columbia […]
A reader of this blog on Facebook expressed concern that my post yesterday, “Abortion, fetal tissue, and rape” was encouraging rape victims to submit to abortions. Let me be clear. My post is not about encouraging rape victims to have abortions. I believe that it takes courage and generosity to continue to carry a child […]
Over at the Public Discourse blog, UFL member Chris Kaczor responds to Dennis O’Brien’s argument that prolifers are not serious unless we seek to impose the same criminal penalties for murder and for the performance of an abortion. In Let’s Talk About Abortion: A Reply to Dennis O’Brien Professor Kaczor argues that there are many […]