Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Response: The Death of the Bisexual Saboteur

Abstract: Professor Glazer offers us, in Sexual Reorientation, an appealing and intuitive way to deal with the difficulty of bisexual identity, an identity that has always fit uneasily and sometimes quite unhappily in the LGBT rights movement. If the principal problem of bisexuality is its very temporal changeability, its tendency to dissolve into heterosexuality or homosexuality depending on the gender of one's sexual partner, then Glazer's solution is elegant. She proposes that we bifurcate (so to speak) sexual orientation into two subcategories and acknowledge for everyone both a general and a specific orientation. General orientation "is the sex toward which the individual is attracted as a general matter," while specific orientation is determined by the sex of the individual's current partner. Thus, for bisexuals and anyone whose specific coupling does not fall in line with how they generally understand their sexual identity, Glazer's sexual reorientation offers a neat way to own both a general and a specific identity. Glazer elaborates on her new categories by analogizing to two deep tensions in the theorizing on sexual identity: the distinctions between status and conduct and between individual and group rights. Glazer suggests that one's sexual identity has a general characteristic -- a "type," as she puts it, such as someone who is normally attracted to women -- that may or may not align with the gender of one's partner at any given time. This general orientation, or type, is analogous to one's sexual "status," whereas one's specific orientation recognizes the act or "conduct" of partnering with a specific person. Moreover, according to Glazer, one's general orientation belongs to each person as an individual while one's specific orientation is necessarily more relational, as it "describes one's sexual orientation once coupled." The result for Glazer is a reorientation of sexual identity that would not only overcome some of the problems presented by the status/conduct distinction and accommodate both individual and relational conceptions of identity, but would also provide the law with the ability to protect "living identities."

Biomedical Research Involving Prisoners: Ethical Values and Legal Regulation

Abstract: Until the early 1970's, approximately 90% of all pharmaceutical research was conducted on prisoners, who were also subjected to biochemical research, including studies involving dioxin and chemical warfare agents. By the mid-1970's, biomedical research in prisons sharply declined as knowledge of the exploitation of prisoners began to emerge and the National Commission for the protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical Research was formed. Federal regulations to protect human subjects of research were established in 1974. Special protections for prisoners were added in 1978, severely limiting research involving prisoners. However, the US correctional system has undergone major changes since the adoption of the federal regulations, making it appropriate to reexamine the ethical framework for research involving prisoners. While the history of prisoner exploitation cautions against allowing research, modern science might be able to improve understanding of the intractable problems faced by prisoners. Finding a balance between encouraging beneficial research and safeguarding prisoners is challenging and politically controversial. This commentary presents a series of proposals, based on the recommendations of Institute of Medicine Committee on Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners. If adopted, the following proposals would provide such a system of safeguards while allowing responsible research. 1) Expand the Definition of Prisoner to include non-custodial prisoners, comprehensively covering all individuals whose autonomy and liberty are restricted by the justice system. 2) Ensure Universal, Consistent Ethical Protection of prisoners by regulating all research on prisoners uniformly, irrespective of the source of funding, supporting agency, or type of correctional facility. 3) Create a National Database of Prisoner Research to permit greater accountability, provide a scientific methodology for assessing the success of research projects, and facilitate the implementation of beneficial research findings to prisoner populations. 4) Shift from a Category-Based to a Risk-Benefit Approach to Research Review to ensure that research with prisoners should be conducted only if it offers a distinctly favorable benefit-to-risk ratio, not because prisoners are a convenient source of research participants or have no access to therapeutic treatment. 5) Update the Ethical Framework to Include Collaborative Responsibility meaning that, to the extent possible, stakeholders (e.g., prisoners, correctional officers, medical staff) should participate in the design, planning, and implementation of research. 6) Enhance Systematic Oversight of Research by strengthening safeguards, making them consistent, and applying them in relation to the levels of risk and restriction of liberty experienced by prisoner-subjects.

Employment-Based Health Insurance and Universal Coverage: Four Things People Know That Aren't So

Abstract: Employment-based health insurance is the Rodney Dangerfield of U.S. health policy: it gets no respect from anyone. Employment-based coverage ("EBC") may not get much respect, but it covers roughly 177 million people - and it appears to have considerable staying power - even if the principal explanation for that staying power is nothing more compelling than inertia. Given the likely prevalence of EBC for the foreseeable future, it is worth emphasizing four important points about EBC and universal coverage. What these points have in common is that they are myths - most people believe they are true, even though they are not. The four "myths" are these:* Employers pay for EBC;* There are 45.7 million uninsured Americans; * Universal coverage means everyone will have access to high quality care;* Universal coverage will solve the cost problems of American health care. The paper explains why each of these points are "things people know that aren't so." It then highlights the budgetary and collective action problems with trying to get to universal coverage without relying on EBC, at least for the foreseeable future.

Double, Double Toil and Trouble: Justice-Talk and the Future of Medical Malpractice Litigation

Abstract: It’s not easy being a lawyer. “Biglaw” may not be dead (yet), but major firms have dissolved, filed for bankruptcy, and shed partners and practice groups. Small and mid-sized firms and solo practitioners are facing similar challenges. Some of these developments are attributable to the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Others are the result of structural and technological changes affecting the market for legal services — and those changes have revealed new weaknesses in the business forms through which lawyers have traditionally delivered legal services. To most inhabitants of Biglaw, these changes and challenges are unprecedented, but to lawyers who do medical malpractice and personal injury litigation, market turbulence of this sort is old hat. Over the past three decades, there have been dramatic changes in the market (and demand) for such services. Some of these changes are clearly attributable to legislative action, including caps on noneconomic or total damages, and procedural hurdles such as screening panels, certification requirements, and interlocutory appeals of expert witness reports. But, even in states that have not taken such steps, there has been a long-term secular decline in the volume of medical malpractice litigation. Apart from the highly visible public brawl over the merits of damage caps, these developments have attracted little attention. However, the dynamics are clear to those who wish to pay attention to them. In this Article, we explore these trends, highlight the ways in which they have interacted with one another, and then briefly discuss why it is not helpful to analyze these developments in terms of their impact on “access to justice.”

Law’s Sentiments

Abstract: The chapter argues that law and the Rule of Law do not displace moral sentiments, but rather require them, and sometimes produce them Law gives us some sense of physical security and thereby makes possible the fellow feeling and empathy that are the root of moral action The chapter seeks to make this claim plausible by looking at fiction that describes various dystopian lawless states, including the hierarchy of the Church, which law has been loath to enter, badly policed neighborhoods, nineteenth century American slavery, and early twentieth century patriarchal marriages One lesson of much of this fiction is that these lawless dystopias not only leave their inhabitants with nasty, brutish and short lives, but also truncate their capacities for empathy and community