1. Loving v Virginia and Lawrence v Texas logically require the result in Goodrich v Department of Public Health. Discuss.
2. The "best interests" of children should always trump the interests of adults. Discuss in light of the Baby Jessica case and the parental obligations of sperm donors.
3. How did the basic principles of feminism influence the law of (a) abortion rights; (b) divorce; (c) post-marital child custody and child support obligations; (d) sodomy and (e) gay marriage?
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Reading for December 12
Reading for this week has been posted in the Syllabus under Week 12, Conservative Backlash
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Baby Jessica Update
Baby Jessica couple to remarry
February 4, 2001
Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/news/mich/jess4_20010204.htm
The Ann Arbor couple that gained national attention over the adoption of Baby Jessica say they plan to remarry, more than a year after they divorced.
Jan and Roberta DeBoer said in a statement released Friday by Hear My Voice, a child-advocacy group founded by the couple, that their love and commitment to each carried them through a hard time.
"We are happy to be all together again," they said.
In October 1999, the couple divorced, saying the strain of a 2 1/2-year custody battle was too much for their 17-year-marriage.
In August 1993, the little girl they had called Jessica was returned to her Iowa birth parents, Dan and Cara Schmidt.
Jessica, who turns 10 this month, was renamed Anna.
Roberta DeBoer wrote a book about the drama.
The Schmidts divorced at about the same time as the DeBoers. The couple have joint custody, but Anna and another daughter, Chloe, live with Dan Schmidt.
Baby Jessica's dad in trouble
He can't work, pay bills; may lose kids
March 6, 2001
Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/news/nw/jessica6_20010306.htm
BLAIRSTOWN, Iowa -- Hard times have fallen on Dan Schmidt, the father of a little girl once known as Baby Jessica, who was in the center of a high-profile custody case involving Schmidt's Iowa family and the Michigan couple who adopted his daughter. Bill collectors are rattling his door, the electric company is ready to pull the plug and Schmidt fears bankers will come for his house soon, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported Saturday in a copyrighted story.
In losing his house near Blairstown, he may have to give up life as it is with his two girls. "I'm desperate," Schmidt said. "I've let things go. It gets to me. I get depressed. I'm losing everything."
One of his girls, Anna, now 10, was known as Baby Jessica. In 1993, she was at the center of a custody battle between Schmidt and his wife, Cara, and Jan and Roberta DeBoer of Michigan.
The DeBoers adopted the little girl they called Jessica in 1991 after Cara Schmidt, then Cara Clausen, gave up the child she had named Anna for adoption.
Clausen, however, changed her mind and informed Schmidt he was the father. They went to court in the month after the girl's birth to get her back. They married in 1992. The resolution took 2 1/2 years while the nation debated whether the child belonged with her biological parents or in the adoptive home where she'd been raised. The supreme courts in Iowa and Michigan awarded custody to the Schmidts in 1993.
The Schmidts divorced in March 2000. The couple have joint custody, but Anna and another daughter, Chloe, 7, live with Dan Schmidt. Cara Schmidt pays him $50 every two weeks for child support as part of the divorce decree.
Dan Schmidt's life took a downward turn on Oct. 7, 1998, when he was injured while working on a street construction job in Blairstown. A trench caved in around him, separating his pelvis. Schmidt said he hasn't worked since and isn't able to work.
Last May, the insurance company paying workers' compensation cut him off. "They sent me a letter saying the healing period is over," Schmidt said. He continues to fight for what he calls a fair disability settlement from the insurer. He also continues to battle the Social Security Administration for permanent disability payments.
Up to now, Schmidt has made ends meet by refinancing his house, relying on the charity of friends and relatives and by emergency public assistance. Schmidt fears he may have to let his daughters live full-time with their mother while he goes to live with his sister and brother-in-law or his mother.
"If something doesn't happen, my kids will go to her because I can't afford to keep them," he said.
A child's life shows folly of adults, media
February 24, 2003
Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/news/metro/dicker24%5F20030224.htm
BY BRIAN DICKERSONFREE PRESS COLUMNIST
The girl millions of Americans remember as Baby Jessica turned 12 this month, and her story ought to humble all of us who foresaw such a dark future when the Michigan Supreme Court returned her to her birth parents in 1993.
Anna Schmidt was only a few weeks old when she became the object of a nationally publicized custody fight between her biological parents in Iowa and an Ann Arbor couple who hoped to adopt her.
Abetted by media-savvy advisers, Jan and Roberta DeBoer easily won the contest for the hearts and minds of the American public, who almost universally perceived the DeBoers as more responsible, better educated, and altogether more suited for parenthood than Anna's birth parents.
But the law was with Dan and Cara Schmidt, who regained custody of their daughter and brought her home to Iowa after a legal firefight that lasted 2 1/2 years. Even worshipers at the Schmidts' Lutheran church wept for the DeBoers' loss. Then they and practically everyone else waited to see how and when Anna's psychological devastation would manifest itself.
The tragedy that wasn't
Nine years later, they're still waiting. WDIV-TV (Channel 4) reporter Paula Tutman, who recently spent a weekend day at home with Anna Schmidt, found a self-possessed 12-year-old who adores her parents and her 9-year-old sister, makes friends easily and sings every Sunday before the congregation that once looked down its nose at her natural parents.
Not that Anna's life in Blairstown, Iowa, has been a light breeze on the lake. Her dad has been out of work since 1999, when a trench he was working in caved in, injuring his pelvis.
Dan and Cara divorced the following year. Anna and her sister, Chloe, divide their time between Dan's and Cara's residences.
It's not the family Beaver Cleaver grew up in -- but whose family is? Anna doesn't act like someone who's been dealt a bad hand. Maybe she's old enough to recognize that in a world where many children lack even a single adult who cares about them, she and her sister have lucked out.
She seems more bemused than haunted by her extraordinary history. In Tutman's interview, Anna can be seen leafing through a copy of "Losing Jessica," Robby DeBoer's account of her and Jan's unsuccessful adoption bid. Anna has also watched the made-for-TV movie of the custody fight, a maliciously deceitful production that canonized the DeBoers and reduced Anna's parents to hillbilly caricatures living in a hubcap-studded trailer.
A father's lesson
Dan Schmidt's bitterness toward the news media that made him and Cara national pariahs isn't hard to understand, and time has taken only a little of the edge off his anger.
"What I learned," he told Tutman, "is that the media, the papers, they make one person good and one person bad." Journalists who don't recognize at least a kernel of truth in that observation need to look harder
.
What's clear, nine years later, is that there are no real villains in Anna Schmidt's still-unfolding life story -- just a whole lot of clumsy adults doing their level best to be heroes.
A child can do far worse than that, as Anna seems to have figured out long ago.
February 4, 2001
Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/news/mich/jess4_20010204.htm
The Ann Arbor couple that gained national attention over the adoption of Baby Jessica say they plan to remarry, more than a year after they divorced.
Jan and Roberta DeBoer said in a statement released Friday by Hear My Voice, a child-advocacy group founded by the couple, that their love and commitment to each carried them through a hard time.
"We are happy to be all together again," they said.
In October 1999, the couple divorced, saying the strain of a 2 1/2-year custody battle was too much for their 17-year-marriage.
In August 1993, the little girl they had called Jessica was returned to her Iowa birth parents, Dan and Cara Schmidt.
Jessica, who turns 10 this month, was renamed Anna.
Roberta DeBoer wrote a book about the drama.
The Schmidts divorced at about the same time as the DeBoers. The couple have joint custody, but Anna and another daughter, Chloe, live with Dan Schmidt.
Baby Jessica's dad in trouble
He can't work, pay bills; may lose kids
March 6, 2001
Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/news/nw/jessica6_20010306.htm
BLAIRSTOWN, Iowa -- Hard times have fallen on Dan Schmidt, the father of a little girl once known as Baby Jessica, who was in the center of a high-profile custody case involving Schmidt's Iowa family and the Michigan couple who adopted his daughter. Bill collectors are rattling his door, the electric company is ready to pull the plug and Schmidt fears bankers will come for his house soon, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported Saturday in a copyrighted story.
In losing his house near Blairstown, he may have to give up life as it is with his two girls. "I'm desperate," Schmidt said. "I've let things go. It gets to me. I get depressed. I'm losing everything."
One of his girls, Anna, now 10, was known as Baby Jessica. In 1993, she was at the center of a custody battle between Schmidt and his wife, Cara, and Jan and Roberta DeBoer of Michigan.
The DeBoers adopted the little girl they called Jessica in 1991 after Cara Schmidt, then Cara Clausen, gave up the child she had named Anna for adoption.
Clausen, however, changed her mind and informed Schmidt he was the father. They went to court in the month after the girl's birth to get her back. They married in 1992. The resolution took 2 1/2 years while the nation debated whether the child belonged with her biological parents or in the adoptive home where she'd been raised. The supreme courts in Iowa and Michigan awarded custody to the Schmidts in 1993.
The Schmidts divorced in March 2000. The couple have joint custody, but Anna and another daughter, Chloe, 7, live with Dan Schmidt. Cara Schmidt pays him $50 every two weeks for child support as part of the divorce decree.
Dan Schmidt's life took a downward turn on Oct. 7, 1998, when he was injured while working on a street construction job in Blairstown. A trench caved in around him, separating his pelvis. Schmidt said he hasn't worked since and isn't able to work.
Last May, the insurance company paying workers' compensation cut him off. "They sent me a letter saying the healing period is over," Schmidt said. He continues to fight for what he calls a fair disability settlement from the insurer. He also continues to battle the Social Security Administration for permanent disability payments.
Up to now, Schmidt has made ends meet by refinancing his house, relying on the charity of friends and relatives and by emergency public assistance. Schmidt fears he may have to let his daughters live full-time with their mother while he goes to live with his sister and brother-in-law or his mother.
"If something doesn't happen, my kids will go to her because I can't afford to keep them," he said.
A child's life shows folly of adults, media
February 24, 2003
Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/news/metro/dicker24%5F20030224.htm
BY BRIAN DICKERSONFREE PRESS COLUMNIST
The girl millions of Americans remember as Baby Jessica turned 12 this month, and her story ought to humble all of us who foresaw such a dark future when the Michigan Supreme Court returned her to her birth parents in 1993.
Anna Schmidt was only a few weeks old when she became the object of a nationally publicized custody fight between her biological parents in Iowa and an Ann Arbor couple who hoped to adopt her.
Abetted by media-savvy advisers, Jan and Roberta DeBoer easily won the contest for the hearts and minds of the American public, who almost universally perceived the DeBoers as more responsible, better educated, and altogether more suited for parenthood than Anna's birth parents.
But the law was with Dan and Cara Schmidt, who regained custody of their daughter and brought her home to Iowa after a legal firefight that lasted 2 1/2 years. Even worshipers at the Schmidts' Lutheran church wept for the DeBoers' loss. Then they and practically everyone else waited to see how and when Anna's psychological devastation would manifest itself.
The tragedy that wasn't
Nine years later, they're still waiting. WDIV-TV (Channel 4) reporter Paula Tutman, who recently spent a weekend day at home with Anna Schmidt, found a self-possessed 12-year-old who adores her parents and her 9-year-old sister, makes friends easily and sings every Sunday before the congregation that once looked down its nose at her natural parents.
Not that Anna's life in Blairstown, Iowa, has been a light breeze on the lake. Her dad has been out of work since 1999, when a trench he was working in caved in, injuring his pelvis.
Dan and Cara divorced the following year. Anna and her sister, Chloe, divide their time between Dan's and Cara's residences.
It's not the family Beaver Cleaver grew up in -- but whose family is? Anna doesn't act like someone who's been dealt a bad hand. Maybe she's old enough to recognize that in a world where many children lack even a single adult who cares about them, she and her sister have lucked out.
She seems more bemused than haunted by her extraordinary history. In Tutman's interview, Anna can be seen leafing through a copy of "Losing Jessica," Robby DeBoer's account of her and Jan's unsuccessful adoption bid. Anna has also watched the made-for-TV movie of the custody fight, a maliciously deceitful production that canonized the DeBoers and reduced Anna's parents to hillbilly caricatures living in a hubcap-studded trailer.
A father's lesson
Dan Schmidt's bitterness toward the news media that made him and Cara national pariahs isn't hard to understand, and time has taken only a little of the edge off his anger.
"What I learned," he told Tutman, "is that the media, the papers, they make one person good and one person bad." Journalists who don't recognize at least a kernel of truth in that observation need to look harder
.
What's clear, nine years later, is that there are no real villains in Anna Schmidt's still-unfolding life story -- just a whole lot of clumsy adults doing their level best to be heroes.
A child can do far worse than that, as Anna seems to have figured out long ago.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Family Law
Scribdのリンクから見られないときは、DownloadAdobe Acrobatで開いてみてください。
Course Outline
Week 1 Introduction
William’s Doll
Heather Has Two Mommies
Week 2 Traditional Gender Roles/Stereotypes
Bradwell v. State ofIllinois U.S.
Craig v. Boren, 429U.S.
Week 3 Feminist View of Marriage and Reproduction
Required reading:
Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family
The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 1
Optional Reading:
National Organization for Women Statement of Purpose
Reconsideration of The Feminine Mystique
A Marriage Agreement
When Mom and Dad Share It All
Week 4 Contraception and Abortion
Richard Posner, The Sexual Revolution in the Courts
Week 5 The Divorce Revolution
Lawewnce
Week 6 Child custody
Martin Guggenheim, Divorce, Custody and Visitation, pp. 133 - 173
Week 7 Parental rights, children’s rights, Part 1
Martin Guggenheim, The Rights of Parents, pp.17-49
Week 8 Parental Rights, children’s rights, Part 2
Martin Guggenheim, The Baby Jessica Case, pp.50-96
Week 9 Gay marriage, gay parents
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S.1(1967)
Constitutional Dimensions of the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
The Unnecessary Father pp.65-83
The Stepfather and the Nearby Guy pp.185-198
Week 13 The FLDS Case
Course Outline
Week 1 Introduction
William’s Doll
Heather Has Two Mommies
Week 2 Traditional Gender Roles/Stereotypes
Bradwell v. State of
Craig v. Boren, 429
Week 3 Feminist View of Marriage and Reproduction
Required reading:
Feminist Perspectives on Reproduction and the Family
The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 1
Optional Reading:
National Organization for Women Statement of Purpose
Reconsideration of The Feminine Mystique
A Marriage Agreement
When Mom and Dad Share It All
Week 4 Contraception and Abortion
Richard Posner, The Sexual Revolution in the Courts
Week 5 The Divorce Revolution
Week 6 Child custody
Martin Guggenheim, Divorce, Custody and Visitation, pp. 133 - 173
Week 7 Parental rights, children’s rights, Part 1
Martin Guggenheim, The Rights of Parents, pp.17-49
Week 8 Parental Rights, children’s rights, Part 2
Martin Guggenheim, The Baby Jessica Case, pp.50-96
Week 9 Gay marriage, gay parents
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S.1(1967)
Constitutional Dimensions of the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
Week 10 Surrogate parenting/Adoption
Lawrence
The Strange Case of Baby M, Katha Pollit
Week 11 Philosophies of Child Rearing, Education and Discipline
The Nation as Family
Progressive Education in the 1940’s
Fog of Math Wars
A Good Night’s Sleep
The Unnecessary Father pp.65-83
The Stepfather and the Nearby Guy pp.185-198
Week 13 The FLDS Case
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