The U.S. Supreme Court will decide later this year whether to let stand decisions by two appeals courts permitting doctors to help terminally ill patients commit suicide. The Ninth and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals last spring held that state laws in Washington and New York that ban assistance in suicide were unconstitutional as applied to doctors and their dying patients. If the Supreme Cou...

The recent Supreme Court decision of Queensland v B [2008] 2 Qd R 562 has significant implications for the law that governs consent and abortions. The judgment purports to extend the ratio of Secretary, Department of Health and Community Services (NT) v JWB and SMB (1992) 175 CLR 218 (Marion's Case) and impose a requirement of court approval for terminations of pregnancy for minors who are not ...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 forever changed the face of electoral equality in the United States. Today, almost forty years later, the Act is considered one of the most pivotal pieces of federal legislation in our country’s history and the “most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted.” Congress has revisited various segments of the Act ave times since its enactment. A key 19...

For two decades, clinicians have been guided by an agreement about the appropriate use of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH). In general, ANH has been seen as a medical treatment that patients or their surrogates may accept or refuse on the basis of the same considerations that guide all other treatment decisions: the potential benefits, risks, and discomfort of the treatment and the reli...