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The Medicine Equity and Drug Safety Act of 2000: Releasing Gray Market Pharmaceuticals
Get PDFAs increased pharmaceutical prices became a political focal point amidst a contentious 2000 presidential campaign, Congress sought a compromise between agitated American consumers and a healthy pharmaceutical lobby. The resulting Medical Equity and Drug Safety Act of 2000 seeks to lower domestic pharmaceutical prices by allowing pharmacists and wholesalers to import U.S. pharmaceuticals that are sold abroad by U.S. companies at lower prices.This Article analyzes two aspects of the new legislation: whether the law is compatible with existing intellectual property rights regarding patent holder control of the imports of patented goods and a critical analysis of the public policy and economic reality of instituting such a plan as envisioned by the Act. While implementation of the law is contingent on the as of yet unsecured approval of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, it is unlikely that this issue will dissipate in the near future
Paradoxical Parallels in the American and German Abortion Decisions
Get PDFIn this Article, Professors Levy and Somek engage in a careful comparative analysis of the leading constitutional abortion decisions in the United States and Germany. This analysis is occasioned by the remarkable convergence of the abortion regulation regimes of the two countries, notwithstanding the diametrically opposed starting points of the United States Supreme Court and the German Constitutional Court. While Roe v. Wade started from the premise that the fetus had no rights and that the woman’s right to privacy encompassed a right to choose abortion free from government burdens, the First German Abortion Decision established that the constitutional guarantee of a right to life encompassed the unborn child and required the state to criminalize abortion. Nonetheless, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and the Second German Abortion Decision, the respective Courts accommodated nearly identical abortion regimes in which the mother is allowed to have an abortion early in the pregnancy and for specified causes, but the state structures the context of that decision in an effort to persuade her to carry the child to term. The reasoning process by which both Courts have moderated their abortion jurisprudence exhibits three “paradoxical parallels.” First, in Roe and The First German Decision, the Courts constructed a clear hierarchy of constitutional rights to legitimate their involvement in the abortion issue, only to reintroduce previously subordinated interests later in the analysis. Because the reintroduction of these interests is inconsistent with the Courts’ constitutional hierarchy of rights and remains largely unexplained, there is a disjunction between the legal framework for and moral balance of the respective decisions. Second, in Casey and The Second German Abortion Decision, both Courts exploited this disjunction to claim fidelity to precedent while accommodating compromise abortion regimes. Ultimately, however, these new legal frameworks did not rest on any independent constitutional foundation, but rather on the moral balance of the earlier decisions. But even the respective Court’s claims to have retained the moral balance of the earlier decisions remained unpersuasive, because their new legal frameworks effectively redefined the moral balance. Third, both Courts reasoned that the locus of the abortion decision has not changed under the new abortion regimes; i.e., that the decision remained with the mother in Casey and with the state in The Second German Abortion Decision. In both cases, however, this reasoning oversimplified the nature of the abortion decision and ignored the ways in which the state’s context-shaping role has, in fact, changed. Because this change is likely to have a significant impact on some substantial number of women, the locus of decision has changed. Ultimately, Professors Levy and Somek assess the implications of these paradoxical parallels for the role of the courts in modern society, suggesting that the example of abortion illustrates the limits of the courts’ ability to oppose powerful social forces and the loss of institutional capital that may result from becoming involved in controversial moral questions. This is not to say that the courts should abandon constitutional principle to popular sentiment, but rather that courts must be conscious of their own limits
Doe v. Unocal Corp., Apples and Oranges: Why Courts Should Use International Standards to Determine Liability for Violation of the Law of Nations Under the Alien Tort Claims Act
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A Right to Die with Dignity: Using International Perspectives to Formulate a Workable U.S. Policy
Get PDFAs medical technology lengthens man’s natural life-span, the right to die with dignity has moved to the forefront of contentious American societal issues. The United States should not hesitate to look at right to die legislation on the international stage, prudently sifting through novel and bold approaches that may or may not work in our country.
After analyzing the U.S. legal opinions on the right to die, this Comment examines pertinent international judicial opinions and legislation that could be useful in guiding the debate in the United States. The American discussion is often crowded with polemical debates that obfuscate the issues; this Comment will attempt to place these arguments into proper perspective. This Comment closes with suggestions of several bold, but rudimentary, reforms that should be implemented in the United States before any further discussions on right to die issues proceed
