Interpreting the 2019 New York Reproductive Health Act? There has been a lot of discussion about the New York 2019 Reproductive Health Act signed by Governor Cuomo. Under what conditions can a legal abortion be performed under the NY 2019 Reproductive Health Act? Certain popular pundits claim that legal abortions may be performed post-birth if the mother claims that the child is a threat to her mental and/or physical health. Is an abortion legal in this case?
There is no time limit on performing a legal abortion. §2599-bb of the bill says that a physician may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner's reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient's case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health It is left to ordinary language interpretation to understand what "abortion" is. The ordinary meaning of abortion does not include act that follow birth or a child. The law as amended still defines homicide as conduct which causes the death of a person under circumstances constituting murder, manslaughter in the second degree, or criminally negligent homicide and deleted the clause which included the clause an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than twenty-four weeks (this is how abortion past 24 weeks was formerly illegal). The definitions say that A person, when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who has been born and is alive Once a fetus becomes a person by being born, the homicide statute prohibits killing the person. So apart from the fact that killing a person is not "an abortion", the law does not make it legal to kill any man being who has been born and who is alive. As for what constitutes "health", that is not delimited by law, that is, it says simply "health", not "physical health". In general, "health" without modifiers means any kind of health. In fact, in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 it was found that whether a particular operation is necessary for a patient's physical or mental health is a judgment that physicians are obviously called upon to make routinely whenever surgery is considered
Your understanding of the bill is correct. Legislation takes effect 90 days after sine die adjournment unless there is an emergency or enactment clause. If a relevant provision of the law is struck down as unconstitutional, any suit dependent on the provision would be dismissed. Residency is not relevant, what is relevant is being subject to Arkansas jurisdiction, meaning "being in Arkansas". A non-resident traveling to Arkansas could not have a forbidden procedure in Arkansas, and an Arkansas resident can have a procedure allowed elsewhere if they are elsewhere. A spouse would not be able to get an injunction if, for instance, the wife traveled to Washington state for the procedure, because Arkansas courts have no jurisdiction over Washington state. The law imposes a restriction on what physicians in Arkansas can do, and the woman receiving the abortion is not subject to liability.
Where did California get authorization to receive my medical info from Walgreens? From HIPAA. Permitted Uses and Disclosures. A covered entity is permitted, but not required, to use and disclose protected health information, without an individual’s authorization, for the following purposes or situations: (1) To the Individual (unless required for access or accounting of disclosures); (2) Treatment, Payment, and Health Care Operations; (3) Opportunity to Agree or Object; (4) Incident to an otherwise permitted use and disclosure; (5) Public Interest and Benefit Activities; and (6) Limited Data Set for the purposes of research, public health or health care operations.18 Covered entities may rely on professional ethics and best judgments in deciding which of these permissive uses and disclosures to make. ... (5) Public Interest and Benefit Activities. The Privacy Rule permits use and disclosure of protected health information, without an individual’s authorization or permission, for 12 national priority purposes.28 These disclosures are permitted, although not required, by the Rule in recognition of the important uses made of health information outside of the health care context. Specific conditions or limitations apply to each public interest purpose, striking the balance between the individual privacy interest and the public interest need for this information. ... Public Health Activities. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to: (1) public health authorities authorized by law to collect or receive such information for preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability and to public health or other government authorities authorized to receive reports of child abuse and neglect; (2) entities subject to FDA regulation regarding FDA regulated products or activities for purposes such as adverse event reporting, tracking of products, product recalls, and post-marketing surveillance; (3) individuals who may have contracted or been exposed to a communicable disease when notification is authorized by law; and (4) employers, regarding employees, when requested by employers, for information concerning a work-related illness or injury or workplace related medical surveillance, because such information is needed by the employer to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MHSA), or similar state law. See: HIPAA Privacy Rule In plain English... A covered entity (Walgreens) is allowed to use and disclose your PHI without your authorization to public health authorities for controlling and preventing diseases. Additionally, they are allowed to receive this information for the purposes of adverse event recording (reactions to shots), tracking of products (tracking of shots), and notifying you of issues related to the product you were given. Is this legal, and can the State be indicted for breach of privacy? Yes, this is legal, and no, the State cannot be sued for it.
There is no prospect for equitable relief in such an outcome. The Texas state government enjoys sovereign immunity, except as specified under the Tort Claims Act. Under that law, immunity is waived only in the case of damage caused by negligence of a state employee, and is limited primarily to vehicle accidents and physical injuries. So the state cannot be sued for passing a law found to be unconstitutional. An individual would not enjoy such immunity, but given the law, there is no identifiable defendant to seek relief from (everybody is a potential defendant). An former abortion provider who now declines to perform an abortion can't be sued, because doctors in general have no obligation to perform particular medical procedures (most doctors in Texas won't perform an abortion, even before SB8), and the course will not render a judgment against a doctor on the grounds that they obeyed an existing law but should have known that it would be found unconstitutional.
In many US states (and in the UK), statutory rape is a strict liability offense. This means that there is no intent requirement at all; the only allowable defenses are those that negate the actual act (there was no sex, the person was of age, or sometimes that the action was not a conscious or voluntary action), it falls within a statutory exception to the crime, or there is an applicable defense that has nothing to do with intent. Many general defenses do not apply to strict liability crimes; in particular, "I thought X when Y was true" tries to show there was to intent to commit the crime, which is irrelevant. In Michigan (where the crime took place), statutory rape is evidently such an offense. That throws some standard defenses into doubt, because anything based on negating criminal intent doesn't matter. However, Michigan does specifically say that it is not criminal to have sex with a person under 16 if they are your legal spouse; this is a very common exception to statutory rape laws. So, marriage is a way to not risk jail for statutory rape in Michigan. However, things do vary by state. In Indiana, it is specifically a defense that the defendant had a reasonable belief that the victim was over the age of consent (unless it was a forcible rape).
If that person becomes incapacitated or is deemed unfit to make their own decisions, will I be required to be physically present (for example, to sign something) to make those decisions if called upon? While it is customary for someone making decisions as weighty as removal of life support, to come to the hospital or care facility in person and discuss the issues with treating physicians, it isn't required. When you are physically there it is easier for you to personally assess the patient's condition rather than just taking someone else's word for it, and you have more informal access to everything that is going on in terms of people coming in and out of the patient's room, providers you wouldn't have known to speak to initiating conversations with you (e.g. there is typically an ER nurse for each shift, several residents doing rounds checking on a patient, and often also an outside specialist doctor involved in the treatment team). It is also usually easy when you are physically in a hospital to locate someone knowledgable and familiar with the kinds of issues you are facing at the moment to provide spiritual and religious guidance if you feel this would help you make your decision, while your neighborhood clergy person may not have a good understanding of these issues since they don't come up as often for someone is doesn't frequently spend time around people being treated in hospitals or hospices. And, this kind of pastoral counseling requires not just religious knowledge but an understanding of the options that are being presented through the lens of what is religiously and morally important about the differences between the different options. When I was an attorney for a hospital handling these issues for the hospital, we would have been willing to work with an out of state medical power of attorney agent without their physical presence. But, the fact that this was deep in the Rocky Mountains far from other urban areas (i.e. Grand Junction, Colorado) may have influenced a willingness to be flexible since it would often take a lot of time and money for someone to arrive in person. Also, while the medical power of attorney gives a specific person authority to act, an advanced medical directive is simply a document that goes into a patient's medical record that advises treating providers of the patient's intent and doesn't actually need next of kin approval or a medical power of attorney agent's say so to implement, although better practice is to seek that consent first in case there are any reasons why that advanced medical directive might have been procured improperly from someone lacking capacity or subsequently revoked. There usually will be forms for a medical power of attorney agent to sign, not authorizing a particular medical procedure, but authorizing treatment in general and providing personal and financial information about the patient in connection with admitting that person. But, these days, hospitals are relatively comfortable with handling that paperwork via fax or scanned copies sent via email, and some of the more flexible hospitals will even accept photos of signed documents sent via text message.
I'm not sure if the information is accurate, but according to the above text, when a wife cheats, it is marriage not biology that decides the paternity of the child. I got some questions: If my wife cheats on me, I would still be the legal parent of the child. If I don't want this paternity, is there a legal process to disavow it? In most states, yes (I can't think of any exceptions, but there are 50 states and more self-governing territories and this is a matter of state law). Typically there is a statute of limitations of one to five years from the date of birth for a husband or person listed as a father on a birth certificate to bring a legal action to disavow paternity. See, e.g., California Family Code §§ 7540-7541 (setting a two year statute of limitations from a child's birth for a person with standing to dispute that a cuckolded husband is the legal father with genetic evidence). Note also that the process and statute of limitations are usually not the same, if, for example, a child wishes to prove that the child's biological father is someone other than the legally presumed father of that child. If I fall in love with a married woman and we give birth to a child, I am the biological but not legal parent of the child. Is there a legal process for me to claim paternity of the child from the woman's husband? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989), held that a state is not constitutionally required to make such a process available, but some states do anyway. The details of how this plays out under New York State law are described in this Law.SE question and answer. An analysis of the relevant portions of Minnesota law can be found here. For example, in California, Family Code Section 7541 limits standing to dispute paternity to spouses, people &quot;presumed to be a parent&quot; under Family Code Section 7611, or representatives of children seeking to establish or disestablish the paternity of someone &quot;presumed to be a parent&quot; under Family Code Section 7611. So, the only people eligible to be found to be parents are (excluding spent provisions of only historical interest): A husband who was married to the mother at the time of the birth or within 300 days before the birth. § 7611(a). A putative husband who would have been a spouse under § 7611(a), who marriage is annulled (e.g. because a marriage license expired or a husband was too closely related to the mother or either spouse is already married). § 7611(b). A putative husband who cohabited with the mother within 300 days before the birth whose attempt to married was too obviously defective to require an annulment (e.g. two fifteen year olds who have a church wedding without a marriage license). § 7611(b). A husband of the mother who marries the mother after the birth and is also named as a father on the birth certificate, in a voluntary written promise, or in a court order. § 7611(c). A putative husband who attempt to marry the mother after the birth and is named as a father on the birth certificate, in a voluntary written promise, or in a court order. § 7611(c). A person &quot;who receives the child into his or her home and openly holds out the child as his or her natural child.&quot; § 7611(d). A parent who dies while the &quot;child is in utero&quot; if this is established in a probate court proceeding. § 7511(f). Thus, in California, a father of the child of a woman married to someone else, who is still alive, (or someone of behalf of the child seeking to establish that he is the father) can only dispute the paternity of the husband of the child's mother (if the husband himself or the mother does not challenge the husband's paternity) if he &quot;receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his or her natural child.&quot; Simply claiming paternity without &quot;receiving the child into his home&quot; isn't sufficient to overcome the presumption that the mother's husband is the father in California unless the mother of the child or her husband disputes this presumption. The document says &quot;The reverse is not true&quot;. Why the decision about paternity is different between a wife cheats on a husband and a husband cheats on a wife? Because maternity (absent a surrogacy arrangement) is almost never in doubt, while paternity is often in doubt. Furthermore, it wasn't possible when these doctrines were formulated (centuries ago) to determine paternity reliably in all cases anyway, at least at an affordable price. Cheap and reliable paternity tests, that can be used in pretty much any circumstances{1}, have only been possible for less than forty years, which is why a case like Michael H. v. Gerald D. didn't come up until then. {1} There have been particular cases, for example, when mother and father are both white and a child is at least partially black, where it has always been possible to do so (although even that scenario isn't 100% accurate, as illustrated by a famous historical case in which both parents had a modest amount of African ancestry that wasn't visible phenotypically). Similarly, there was the scenario of @MartinBonner where husband &quot;was away at sea/war at the time conception would have had to occurred&quot;. Later on, blood types could disprove paternity in some cases, but not prove it with any certainty. There is a quasi-magical process described in the Old Testament for resolving such disputes involving the wife drinking a semi-poisonous liquid. In the Roman Empire, those cases were resolved by the husband who had a right to commit infanticide if he wished. In modern times, something close to the existing legal process has usually been available, complicated in certain eras by criminalized adultery, &quot;heart balm&quot; civil actions, and fault based divorce.
One approach is to direct their attention to this publication from the NY Dept. of Health. It says "Physicians and hospitals are required by state law to maintain patient records for at least six years from the date of the patient's last visit". There is also a PDF printout which you can hand to them. If they still absolutely refuse, the publication explains about the appeals process and the consequence to the doctor, but it also provides some "rationalizations" that the staff-person might invoke (for example "Yes, but we charge for copying, I thought you meant for free" – they can charge up to 75 cents per page). There is no legal basis for their 2-year conclusion.