Reason and Paradox in Medical and Family Law: Shaping Children's Bodies.

Legal outcomes often depend on the adjudication of what may appear to be straightforward distinctions. In this article, we consider two such distinctions that appear in medical and family law deliberations: the distinction between religion and culture and between therapeutic and non-therapeutic. These distinctions can impact what constitutes 'reasonable parenting' or a child's 'best interests' and thus the limitations that may be placed on parental actions. Such distinctions are often imagined to be asocial facts, there for the judge to discover. We challenge this view, however, by examining the controversial case of B and G [2015]. In this case, Sir James Munby stated that the cutting of both male and female children's genitals for non-therapeutic reasons constituted 'significant harm' for the purposes of the Children Act 1989. He went on to conclude, however, that while it can never be reasonable parenting to inflict any form of non-therapeutic genital cutting on a female child, such cutting on male children was currently tolerated. We argue that the distinctions between religion/culture and therapeutic/non-therapeutic upon which Munby LJ relied in making this judgement cannot in fact ground categorically differential legal treatment of female and male children. We analyse these distinctions from a systems theoretical perspective-specifically with reference to local paradoxes-to call into question the current legal position. Our analysis suggests that conventional distinctions drawn between religion/culture and the therapeutic/non-therapeutic in other legal contexts require much greater scrutiny than they are usually afforded.

Constituting children's bodily integrity.

Children have a constitutional right to bodily integrity. Courts do not hesitate to vindicate that right when children are abused by state actors. Moreover, in at least some cases, a child's right to bodily integrity applies within the family, giving the child the right to avoid unwanted physical intrusions regardless of the parents' wishes. Nonetheless, the scope of this right vis-à-vis the parents is unclear; the extent to which it applies beyond the narrow context of abortion and contraception has been almost entirely unexplored and untheorized. This Article is the first in the legal literature to analyze the constitutional right of minors to bodily integrity within the family by spanning traditionally disparate doctrinal categories such as abortion rights; corporal punishment; medical decisionmaking; and nontherapeutic physical interventions such as tattooing, piercing, and circumcision. However, the constitutional right of minors to bodily integrity raises complex philosophical questions concerning the proper relationship between family and state, as well as difficult doctrinal and theoretical issues concerning the ever-murky idea of state action. This Article canvasses those issues with the ultimate goal of delineating a constitutional right of bodily security and autonomy for children.

2013 environmental health legislation.

The NEHA Government Affairs program has a long and productive association with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). The organizations have worked together on any number of legislative and policy areas that directly impact the environmental health profession. One of the keys to the successes of the NEHA/NCSL collaboration has been the recognition of the fact that often some of the most significant legislation and policy initiatives related to environmental public health occur in state legislatures. The states have, in a very real sense, been the innovators in developing new programs and practices. In recognition of this fact, we have asked NCSL to provide occasional overviews of state environmental public health legislative activity, covering topics that are of the most pressing public concern. Doug Farquhar, program director for NCSI's Environmental Health Program, has worked with NCSL since 1990. Mr. Farquhar directs development, management, and research for the Environmental Health Program. These projects encompass consultation and policy analysis of state and federal policies and statutes, regulations, and programs regarding environmental and related topics for state legislatures and administrative programs. Amy Ellis is a law clerk for NCSL within the Environment, Energy, and Transportation Group. As a law clerk she has researched a wide variety of environmental health policies. She is expected to obtain her JD from the University of Colorado Law School in 2015.

[Body-modification - bodily harm or cult of the body? An examination by a public medical officer]. / Body Modification - Körperverletzung oder Kultur? Eine amtsärztliche Begutachtung.

In connection with manually performed and lasting changes in themselves, known as body modification, the guardianship authority Zurich examined together with the city's public health physician at the request of relatives of the person affected, whether guardianship measures were to set up to the person concerned to protect against further changes to her body. The legal and medical examination revealed that the person concerned must be judicious about applying changes to her body and no further measures are necessary.

Modern induced skull deformity in adults.

The practice of induced skull deformity has long existed in numerous disparate cultures, but for the first time in history it can be applied to adults. While extremely limited in application, some ideas have persisted in the far fringes of modern Western culture with remarkable tenacity. Practitioners of extreme body modification undergo procedures, outside the sphere of traditional medical practice, to make striking, permanent, nontraditional esthetic tissue distortions with the goal of transgressing societal norms. The International Trepanation Advocacy Group represents another example of a fringe cultural movement, whose goal, rather than being purely aesthetic in nature, is to promote elective trepanation as a method for achieving a heightened level of consciousness. Both movements have relatively short and well-defined histories. Despite their tiny numbers of adherents, neurosurgeons may be called on to address relevant patient concerns preprocedurally, or complications postprocedurally, and would benefit from awareness of these peculiar subcultures.

All hail the new flesh: some thoughts on scarification, children and adults.

Body art as expressed through non-therapeutic bodily modification is extremely popular, with techniques ranging from the commonplace such as ear piercing to the more esoteric forms such as tongue splitting. Scarification is one such body art practice that is becoming popular as an alternative to tattooing and ear piercing. This paper begins by outlining the regulatory problems that scarification poses. It then goes on to argue that although there is a reasonable case for permitting competent adults to make use of scarification, the practice should not be made available to minors.