Claims of sex discrimination in individual cases generally require the complainant to identify a male in a similar situation who received better treatment. As academic employment opportunites decrease, such identifications become increasingly problematic. Even where adverse employment decisions are obviously grounded in sex‐based stereotypes, they are likely to be beyond the reach of antidiscrimination legislation. This article argues for an expansion of traditional notions of discrimination to permit antidiscrimination suits where the adverse employment decision was based on an expectation that women should conform to a certain pattern of behavior whether or not that expectation was based on hostility and whether or not there is a similarly situated male who received different treatment.
No matter what one's position, Baby M is a difficult case. Once a child of contract parenthood has come into being, sorting out the competing claims that changed intentions produce is inevitably a troubling process. Even when taken in the abstract, surrogacy arrangements raise disturbing questions: Can we expand the available options for forming families without risking sex, race, and class exploitation? Can we address the pain experienced by those unable to conceive and bear children without commodifying human life? Whatever our views of surrogacy, we cannot hope to resolve the dilemmas it poses without acknowledging and seeking to address the pain of infertility.Given what we know about infertility, is commercial surrogacy—however troublesome—an appropriate response? Even with only partial information before us, the answer would seem to be a fairly clear no. Surrogacy is at best an after-the-fact accommodation to the problem of infertility, available only to those with substantial financial resources.
a vaginoplasty, the surgical repair of her torn hymen. Having an intact hymen and bleeding on the wedding night are very important signs of virginity in her culture. The absence of either sign could cause a great deal of marital and family strife and even lead to ostracism from her family. In some cases, a woman of doubtful virginity has been the subject of physical violence. Her physician is not sure how to respond to her request. He feels that the practice of vaginoplasty is demeaning to women, but he realizes that Western culture condones other practices equally demeaning. He also wonders if helping her deceive her husband might somehow undermine their shared cultural values. He calls for a consultation with the ethics committee to ask how he should respond to her request. Commentary: Loane Skene a right to determine what shall be done with his own body/' 1 However, the In considering whether to repair this principle that patients are entitled to patient's hymen, the physician might make their own decisions about treatrecall the much-quoted statement of ment extends only to agreeing to, or Justice Cardozo, that"every human be-refusing, procedures recommended by ing of adult years and sound mind has a doctor. It does not mean that patients
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