Numerous flaws in ‘personhood’ movement, says family law expert

On Nov. 8, Mississippi voters will cast their ballots on Initiative 26, which would make every “fertilized egg” a “person” as a matter of law. “Many have rightly condemned this so-called ‘personhood’ initiative as an attack not only on abortion rights, but also on the ability to practice widely used methods of birth control, to attempt in vitro fertilization, and to grieve a miscarriage in private, without a criminal investigation by the state,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. “But these criticisms fail to identify another flaw in the reasoning of the initiative’s proponents,” she says. “The proponents assume that attaching the label of ‘person’ to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses necessarily establishes a legal basis for criminalizing abortion, or even for requiring its criminalization.”

The court is in session

Mark Zoole, JD, adjunct professor at the School of Law, addresses a panel of judges during a question and answer session after a Special Session of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom Nov. 2. The CAAF session featured a panel of five judges hearing arguments on both sides of the case of United States v. Thomas Hayes.

Religious arguments both damage, strengthen the political process

Despite the separation of church and state, religion plays a significant role in political debate. Gregory P. Magarian, JD, free speech and election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that certain forms of religious argument pose a meaningful threat to democracy, but restricting these arguments would be an even larger threat to U.S. political culture.

Dinner explores legal history and feminist vision of sex equality in the workplace

Litigation and legislative reforms have achieved formal rights to equal treatment for women in employment. But women continue to perform disproportionate amounts of caregiving in the home, to suffer economic penalties for childbearing and to face discrimination on account of motherhood in the workplace. “The disconnect between formal equality and the deepening work-family conflict is no accident,” says Deborah Dinner, JD, legal historian and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Brookings, WUSTL Academic Venture Fund grant recipients announced

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and Washington University in St. Louis announce recipients of grants from the joint Academic Venture Fund. The purpose of the AVF is to support collaboration between scholars at WUSTL and the Brookings Institution, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy.

Social Security increase is welcome but inadequate

Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.6 percent beginning in 2012, the first increase since 2009. “COLA is welcome but will not fully maintain beneficiary purchasing power,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security and the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The formula setting that rate does not meet fully the needs of Social Security recipients, especially when considering medical costs.”

Law school launches New York Regulatory & Business Externship

Law students have a new opportunity to learn firsthand about the practice of business associations and regulation in the nation’s largest city through Washington University in St. Louis School of Law’s New York City Regulatory & Business Externship. Offered for the first time this fall, the semester-long clinical experience includes a variety of legal externship opportunities, including those with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, New York City Department of Finance, Standard & Poor’s/McGraw Hill, Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Attorney General’s Office, Anheuser-Busch’s New York headquarters and the New York City Law Department. 

Australian alliance

Andreas Schloenhardt, PhD, associate dean and associate professor of law at the University of Queensland (UQ) TC Beirne School of Law, presents “Be Careful What You Pay For: Trafficking in Persons in Australia,” on Oct. 7, in Anheuser-Busch Hall. Schloenhardt’s lecture was part of a visit to the law school by a delegation from UQ’s TC Beirne School of Law.
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