By Jonathan F. Will On Monday Cassandra C. was sent home from the hospital. Her cancer is in remission after responding well to treatments. Many will recall that those treatments were forced on Cassandra against her wishes and those of her mother. Back in January, the Connecticut Supreme Court issued a two-page order agreeing with state…
By Norman L. Cantor The first signs of my friend Gertie’s descent into dementia were mild — confusion about days of the week and memory loss about recent events. These were troubling but understandable phenomena in my then 84 year-old friend. Aging inevitably entails some cognitive decline. Over time, though, her symptoms of mental deterioration…
By Allison M. Whelan, J.D.Senior Fellow, Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of LawGuest Blogger On March 12, 2015, Texas Representative Elliot Naishtat (Austin) filed HB 3183, which would repeal the Texas law that currently prohibits pregnant women from exercising their advance directives. The existing statute includes the following…
By Lauren Taylor In addition to the closely-watched senate and gubernatorial candidates, 146 ballot questions were up for vote yesterday in 42 states across the nation. Below is a review of the some of the most pressing bioethics issues on the docket and the latest information on what passed according to Politico’s Ballot Tracker.
By Michele Goodwin In the wake of another health care worker contracting Ebola, alarm bells are ringing. Last week, President Obama abruptly cancelled a campaign stop to Rhode Island to hold press conferences where he promised that federal authorities are “taking this very seriously at the highest levels of government.” Despite Obama’s assurances that the…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch In response to the SCOTUS decision granting Wheaton College a preliminary injunction against having to comply with the terms of the HHS accommodation available to non-profit religious organizations who object to covering contraceptives for their employees (i.e., submitting a form to their insurance providers), the Obama Administration has announced that it…
By Gregory Curfman Tom Goldstein, Publisher of SCOTUSblog, has opined on why Justice Stephen Breyer apparently joined the majority opinion in Wheaton College v. Burwell, which the Court released last Thursday. The majority granted Wheaton a temporary injunction exempting the College from the contraceptive mandate, which was spawned by the Affordable Care Act and which…
By Gregory Curfman and Holly Fernandez Lynch [A quick follow up to our recent NEJM Perspective on the case, with I. Glenn Cohen] Immediately after Justice Samuel Alito’s announcement on June 30 of the majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court took further actions on the contraceptive mandate, and both supporters and opponents…
By I. Glenn Cohen, Holly Fernandez Lynch, and Gregory Curfman Check out the “hot off the press” New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives piece “When Religious Freedom Clashes with Access to Care” by Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen, Executive Director Holly Fernandez Lynch, and NEJM Executive Editor (and PFC Faculty Affiliate), Gregory Curfman. We review the…
By Nadia N. Sawicki Did HHS shoot itself in the foot by providing an accommodation to religious non-profits? In holding that the contraceptive mandate imposed by HHS on Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood was not the “least restrictive alternative” for providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women, the Supreme Court pointed to the accommodation HHS recently provided…
