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At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

Supreme Court rejects another anti-choice appeal in racketeering suit.

Without comment on December 12, the US Supreme Court denied two requests for review from anti-choice activists in Scheidler vs Delaware Women's Health Organization and Miller vs Delaware Women's Health Organization, which grew out of a class action suit filed by women's health clinics under the federal anti-racketeering statute. Since the US Supreme Court decision in NOW vs Scheidler last January (see RFN III/2), the anti-choice defendants have made at least a dozen attempts to prevent a trial that would determine whether they violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In NOW vs Scheidler, the High Court rejected their claim that RICO cannot be applied to organized, illegal anti-choice activities because the defendants are not motivated by an economic gain. In this latest round, the two petitions asserted that unlawful actions, including blockades and property destruction, do not constitute extortion and are protected by the First Amendment. Under RICO, private plaintiffs can file suit against individuals who conspire to use an organization to engage in a pattern of racketeering, including acts of extortion. Extortion is defined under the Hobbs Act as the use of force, threats, or other wrongful means to deprive the plaintiff of a property interest, such as engaging in a legal business. Plaintiffs in these cases are the National Organization for Women (NOW) and two women's health facilities--Delaware Women's Health Organization and Summit Women's Health Organization (Milwaukee)--which represent a class of clinics across the country. Defendants Operation Rescue, Project Life, and Pro-Life Action League, are also joined by several anti-choice activists including Joseph Scheidler and Randall Terry.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1995

First Federal Appeals Court finds anti-violence law constitutional.

In a unanimous decision issued on February 13, (1995) a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal of two anti-choice challenges to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). The first mid-level federal bench to rule on FACE's validity, the appeals court held that the law "strikes a balance among competing rights holders. It protects those who seek or provide reproductive health services without suppressing robust debate about abortion. Those opposed to abortion or any other reproductive health service retain the freedom to express their deeply-held moral or religious views in a peaceful, non-obstructive way." In mid-June of last year in American Life League v. Reno, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found that FACE did not violate abortion opponents' First Amendment rights. In open court the next month, Judge Brinkema dismissed Woodall v. Reno, which was filed by an abortion opponent in concert with Concerned Women for America. The cases were consolidated on appeal. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have indicated that they will seek U.S. Supreme Court review. Every other federal court to rule on FACE since its May 1994 enactment has also found the measure constitutional.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1987

Kendrick v. Bowen, 15 April 1987, modified on 15 May 1987.

The plaintiffs, federal taxpayers, challenged the constitutionality of the Adolescent Family Life Act, 42 U.S.C. Sections 300z-300z-10 (1981), provisions of which allow religious organizations to use government funds for, among other things, the counseling and teaching of adolescents on matters related to premarital sexual relations and teenage pregnancy. They claimed that these provisions violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." While the Court held that the Act had a valid secular purpose of combating teenage pregnancy and associated ills, it also ruled that it violated the Constitution because on its face and as applied it had the primary effect of advancing religion. It pointed to the fact that the Act funded the teaching and counseling of adolescents by religious organizations on matters related to religious doctrine, that Act grantees included several organizations with institutional ties to religious denominations, and that some grantees established programmes in which Act-funded staffer presentations were immediately followed in the same room and in the staffers' presence by programs presented by members of religious orders and dedicated to the presentation of religious views.

Ambulatory Care Facilities↗
PubMed1987

Pursley v. City of Fayetteville, Arkansas, 10 June 1987.

The plaintiff anti-abortion demonstrators challenged a city ordinance proscribing picketing a residence or dwelling place. The ordinance had been enacted after complaints of the neighbors of a physician whose home had been picketed. The Court held that the ordinance was over-broad and in violation of First Amendment free speech rights, since it dealt with picketing in a public area and did not distinguish between picketing in neighborhoods near commercial areas and purely residential neighborhoods.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed2004

Creating clones, kids & chimera: liberal democratic compromise at the crossroads.

The objective of this article is to find middle ground between the supporters and opponents of biotechnology by perpetuating the existing legal compromise pertaining to the complete range of health and welfare doctrines relevant to the biotechnological industry. The author aspires neither to add to nor detract from this liberal democratic consensus, but to preserve its constitutive balance between positivism and natural law and over-regulation and under-regulation in the hopes of stabilizing new political fault lines developing around the few biotechnological innovations already grabbing headlines. The most feasible solution is to extend the existing liberal democratic compromise with respect to equal protection, reproductive rights, the First Amendment, human subject experimentation, patent law, and parental rights. This includes banning or monopolizing certain biotechnologies and extending substantive special respect to the ex vivo living human embryo. Biotechnology must not be left to regulate itself.

Biotechnology↗
PubMed1987

Policy implications of private sector involvement in correctional services and programs.

The movement toward private sector involvement in our correctional services and programs is growing. Before our focus is turned completely to privatization of these services, it would be prudent to analyze the "policy impact of such change. It is evident that the diverse and incompatible policies guiding the government approach to corrections and the absence of any rational planning to answer public interest goals is costly. Moreover, despite the increasing complexity of problems now confronting public authorities, little change has been made in their approach to resolving them. However, is it realistic to assume that the profit/loss barometer of the private sector can be applied in an area of social problems that are so pluralistic and ill defined? What of the many areas of potential legal concern, that is, vicarious litigation, First Amendment right of prisoners, and so forth? These are all areas that need to be researched so that any judgements or decisions made will be sound.

Humans↗
PubMed1985

Right to refuse treatment with psychotropic medication.

The law regarding refusal of psychiatric patients to take psychotropic medication is reviewed. The law in this area is traced through its evolution beginning in the 1960s when failure to administer medication to psychiatric patients was considered mistreatment of the patient. The legal basis for forcible administration of drugs is reviewed, and a discussion of cases in which patients refused to accept treatment on religious grounds is presented. When children are involved, the courts are generally in accord that the parents' right to freedom of religion ends where the child's right to life begins or when there is a threat to public health and safety. In cases involving adults, without a threat to public health or safety, relevant opinions rule that medical treatment should not be ordered against the patient's religious beliefs because it would constitute a violation of the First Amendment. Two leading cases involving the forcible administration of medication, Rennie v. Klein and Rogers v. Okin, held that administration should be limited to emergency situations when there is substantial risk of injury to the patient or others in the hospital. The Supreme Court made it clear that the right to refuse must be derived from state law, not from the federal Constitution, apparently giving health-care professionals broad leeway in exercising professional judgment in this area.

Humans↗
PubMed1983

Private credentialing of health care personnel: an antitrust perspective. Part One.

This Article explores the antitrust and other implications of private credentialing and accrediting programs in the health care industry. Although such programs are usually sponsored by powerful competitor groups, they serve the procompetitive purpose of providing useful information and authoritative advice to independent decision makers. Part One examines the risk that credentialing will sometimes be unfair to competitors and deceive consumers. Its survey of common-law, antitrust, and regulatory interventions to correct such unfairness and deception seeks to determine the degree of oversight to which credentialing and similar activities have been and should be subjected. In recommending that judicial or regulatory scrutiny should be limited to discovering whether standards and practices have a rational relation to a procompetitive purpose, the Article argues that greater intrusion into credentialing schemes would be inconsistent with market theory and first amendment values and would discourage line-drawing efforts that stimulate competition and facilitate consumer choice. By emphasizing throughout that personnel certification and institutional accreditation embody ideology and opinion as well as factual information, Part One sets the stage for the argument in Part Two that antitrust law can and should be used to contest the dominance of a single ideology of health care and to facilitate the development of alternative sources of consumer information. The Article's overall thesis is that, whereas the quality of advice given to the public about health care personnel and similar matters should not be closely regulated, neither should the supply of competing information and opinion be artificially curtailed.

Accreditation↗
PubMed1981

Applying antitrust law to medical credentialing.

This Article analyzes the possible antitrust liability of medical credentialing programs by dividing their potentially anticompetitive acts into three categories: (1) communicative behavior--for example, credentialing agencies' promulgation of standards--designed primarily to influence government decision making; (2) communicative behavior designed to influence private decision makers, such as consumers, hospitals, and training programs; and (3) noncommunicative behavior--for example, an agreement by the credentialing agency and others to boycott a group of professionals--that might be used to exclude competitors from various fields of medical care. The author argues that the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, together with the related Noerr-Pennington doctrine, should exempt from antitrust law any credentialing standard that has been adopted for a good-faith purpose and is at least arguably reasonable. On the other hand, the author also argues that antitrust law should condemn any "sham" standard that in fact is designed to eliminate or to punish competitors, and any other noncommunicative behavior by credentialing agencies for the same purpose.

Accreditation↗
PubMed1995

Law and medicine.

The constitutionality of criminal prohibitions on physician-assisted death has become one of the most fascinating issues. The Supreme Court viewed a judicial injunction enforcing access to an abortion clinic as "content neutral" and not subject to heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1994

Pop-rock music as precipitating cause in youth suicide.

The plaintiffs in a law suit alleged that the heavy metal rock band Judas Priest, and its publisher CBS, were liable for damages to two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band's album. Crucial issues included "proximate cause" and "precipitating cause" in suicide, and the alleged role of subliminal messages. The judge ruled that although the "heavy metal" music might have had a toxic influence, the sounds and words are protected by the free speech first amendment. The influence of subliminal messages on behavior is unproven. There were many other elements in the personalities and situations of the victims to account for their self-destructive behavior.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Toward the therapeutic use of obscene language: a legal and clinical review.

Obscenity has been the subject of a series of court cases centered around the First Amendment, and its interpersonal effects have been studied by psychotherapists and communications theorists. But little has been written about the impact of the use of obscenity by patients in group settings to discharge their feelings and to dominate and harass staff and other patients. The authors argue that if staff are to be able to work effectively with patient populations who utilize obscenity routinely for these purposes, they must become more comfortable with its use, and to treat it as another symptom of the patients' interpersonal difficulties. Guidelines for the therapeutic use/management of obscenity on the ward are offered.

Erotica↗
PubMed1997

Regulating firearm advertisements that promise home protection. A public health intervention.

Firearms are a consumer product responsible for 38500 deaths in the United States in 1994. Like other products, firearms are advertised. In the absence of rules governing the design of firearms, regulating the way guns are advertised may be a useful public health intervention. Some gun advertisements include messages suggesting that bringing a handgun into the home is generally protective for the occupants of the home. The best available scientific information contradicts this message. Given this disjunction, regulating those advertisements may be an appropriate response. Under federal law, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has authority to prohibit advertisements that are "deceptive" or "unfair." Under the FTC's deception analysis, the focus is on whether consumers are misled by an advertisement. For a finding of unfairness, the FTC looks for advertisements that may cause substantial injury to consumers. Under either analysis, a strong argument can be made that firearm advertisements promising home protection are unlawful. On February 14, 1996, several organizations sent separate petitions to the FTC asking it to consider the issues raised by firearm advertisements that promise home protection. The FTC is still reviewing the information presented. There are no First Amendment or Second Amendment impediments to FTC regulation of deceptive firearm advertising under the US Constitution.

Advertising↗
PubMed1998

Reconsideration of sexual misconduct by clergy counselors: the case of F.G. v. MacDonell.

In the last decade, concerns about clergy counselors' liability for malpractice has focused on allegations of sexual abuse. Thus far, courts have not adjudicated a complaint of clergy malpractice. Their reasons have centered on concern for freedom of religion under the First Amendment. Therefore, there is a need to find another way to deal with the obvious reality that violating others' rights to satisfy one's own sexual appetites is not a valid expression of religious belief or practice. The authors, upon reviewing cases decided up to a few years ago, concluded that the complaint of breach of fiduciary duty provides a highly fitting way for courts to fairly assess complaints of sexual misconduct brought against clergy counselors. Now, the New Jersey Supreme Court has clearly recognized this complaint as an approach to the problem.

Clergy↗