Law

Five Hawaii doctors offer assisted-suicide to terminally ill patients

Jared Yee | 21 April 2012

A group of Hawaii doctors is offering to write prescriptions for terminally ill patients in order to test whether physician-assisted suicide is permitted under state law, American Medical News reports.

Texas passes stem cell regulations

Jared Yee | 21 April 2012

The Texas Medical Board approved controversial regulations last Friday which are claimed to guarantee safe clinical use of stem cells and other “investigational agents”.

Psychiatrists slate law to seek children’s consent

Jared Yee | 17 March 2012

Psychiatrists have criticised draft West Australian laws that would require mentally ill children as young as 12 to consent to sterilisation, electroconvulsive therapy and psychosurgery.

Locked-in syndrome man in UK to have euthanasia case heard

Jared Yee | 17 March 2012

A paralysed Briton seeking legal protection for a doctor to euthanise him will have his right-to-die case heard, the UK High Court has ruled.

Women’s rights violated in India’s surrogacy capital: study

Jared Yee | 10 March 2012

A recent study published by the Centre for Social Research in India claims that women’s rights in India’s surrogacy capital, Anand in Gujarat are being violated.

Israeli mothers no longer have to adopt babies born via surrogate

Jared Yee | 10 March 2012

A Tel Aviv family court set a legal precedent this week when it ruled that a woman whose eggs were used in a surrogate birth is the child’s legal mother. Until now, legal ambiguities forced women who used gestational surrogates to adopt their own children.

Moldova votes for chemical castration

Jared Yee | 10 March 2012

Chemical castration will be mandatory in Moldova for those convicted of violently abusing children under 15.

Georgia Supreme Court strikes quashes assisted-suicide law

Jared Yee | 11 February 2012

The Georgia Supreme Court has struck down a central provision of a state law that criminalised some assisted suicides because it breaches free speech rights.

Many surrogate children end up in legal limbo

Jared Yee | 10 December 2011

In a story that contrasts with the optimistic surrogacy story in BioEdge last week, at least 15 children born to Irish couples who used overseas surrogates are stuck in a legal limbo.

Court will hear IVF benefits

Jared Yee | 25 November 2011

The US Supreme Court will hear a case about whether children conceived through IVF after the death of a parent are eligible for Social Security survivor benefits.

Austrian restrictions on IVF upheld

Michael Cook | 19 November 2011

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld an Austrian ban on sperm and ova donations. By a vote of 13 to 4, the Court’s Grand Chamber declared that the ban did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

Swedish doctor acquitted in baby death case

Jared Yee | 28 October 2011

A pediatrician charged for having hastened the death of a newborn baby at a hospital in Sweden in 2008 has been acquitted in a case closely observed by Sweden’s medical community.

Defending the rights of surrogate mothers in India

Jared Yee | 15 October 2011

Commercial surrogacy is booming in India.

Mississippi voters can decide on personhood of the unborn: ruling

Jared Yee | 16 September 2011

Voters in Mississippi will have the chance to decide on the personhood of the unborn in November.

Celebrity lawyer discovers new species of mercy killing

Michael Cook | 27 August 2011

The celebrity criminal lawyer who defended Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, Jim Bakker, Claus von Bülow and O.J. Simpson has come up with a novel mercy killing defence. Giji Jordan, a millionaire single mother, gave her son Jude a cocktail of drugs in an up-market Manhattan hotel in February last year. Her lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, says that this is not a case of murder, but justifiable altruistic filicide.

New website gives info on US euthanasia initiatives

Michael Cook | 27 August 2011

A new website opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia brings together useful information about the status the law in the various American states. “Choice is an Illusion” provides up-to-date information about what is happening in the United States

California couple sue IVF doctor over ‘lost’ embryos

Jared Yee | 25 August 2011

Alex Walterspiel and Melanie Waters, a married couple in their 30s, conceived their 3-year-old son through IVF and hoped to have a second pregnancy using one of the remaining frozen embryos.

Sex offenders edge closer to IVF access

Jared Yee | 05 August 2011

Over 50 convicted sex offenders and child abusers may be allowed to have children using IVF after a Victorian Civil and Adminstrative Tribunal ruling last week.

Oregon senate approves ban on suicide kits

Jared Yee | 17 June 2011

The Oregon House of Representatives has approved a ban on the sale and marketing of suicide kits, a month after senators voted unanimously for a similar bill.

Rights court sanctions Poland in abortion case

Jared Yee | 12 June 2011

The Polish government may have to revise its abortion legislation after an exceptionally tragic case in which a woman carrying a foetus with genetic abnormalities was refused an abortion multiple times.