The regulation of science and the Charter of Rights: would a ban on non-reproductive human cloning unjustifiably violate freedom of expression?

Regulation of assisted reproductive technologies in the United States

Ovarian stimulation and intrauterine insemination at the quarter centennial: implications for the multiple births epidemic

This article considers the relationship between rights and federalism in the Supreme Court of Canada's review of cases invoking the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It considers whether the Supreme Court of Canada has compromised provincial autonomy by establishing Canada-wide standards in provincial areas of jurisdiction. It suggests that the centralization thesis associated with judicial review on Charter grounds is inconclusive, and combining several processes under the rubric of centralization, it misrepresents the Charter's effect on Canadian federalism and provincial autonomy. Further, the centralization thesis has lost much momentum during the course of Charter review, and, as a result, is a limited approach to understanding the relationship between rights and federalism in Canada. Specifically, the Supreme Court of Canada has demonstrated sensitivity to federalism in its Charter jurisprudence, most evident in a complex jurisprudence that has served to offset the centralization thesis and its implications for provincial autonomy. This threepart federalism jurisprudence is federalism as gatekeeper, an explicit federalism jurisprudence and an implicit federalism jurisprudence, which is most evident in the relationship between criminal rights and provincial responsibility for the administration of justice. This article demonstrates that the Court's approach to Charter review has seen a reconciliation between rights and federalism, most evident in the declining importance of the centralization thesis and the growing importance of the three-part federalism jurisprudence during Charter review. This sensitivity to federalism has existed since the beginning of the Court's Charter jurisprudence but has largely been overshadowed by the dominance of the centralization thesis in the Charter debate.

After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Describe the outcomes of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) for singleton, twin, and other multiple births. 2. Describe the role of fertility in adverse outcomes seen with ART births. 3. Review the association of birth defects with ART. 4. Delineate the association of disease of genomic imprinting with ART. 5. Describe the relationship between ART and the subsequent incidence of neurodevelopmental sequelae. In the 1977 ruling “Carey v. Population Services International,” the United States Supreme Court ruled that the decision to bear children is constitutionally protected. (1) Significant interest already had been shown in the development and improvements of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for infertile couples. The first human pregnancy and human birth using IVF were reported by Steptoe and Edwards in the United Kingdom. (2) Their work resulted in the first baby born via reproductive technologies, Louise Brown, born on July 25, 1978, at Oldham General Hospital in Oldham, United Kingdom. (3) She was born via a planned cesarean section, and her birthweight was 2.61 kg. The first successful viable IVF in the United States was performed by Jones and Seager-Jones in 1981 in Norfolk, Virginia. (4) Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have seen a recent surge in popularity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 122,872 cycles of ART were initiated in 2003, resulting in the delivery of 48,756 neonates, (5) accounting for approximately 1% of all neonates delivered in the United States. The percentage is higher in many countries, including Denmark, where it is estimated that 5% of all deliveries are with the assistance of ART. (6) Couples pursue ART for myriad reasons, including tubal transport factors, ovulatory dysfunction, uterine factors, endometriosis, male- and female-specific factors, and when a cause of infertility is unknown. (5) It would be very …

The effect of infertility and assisted reproduction on first-trimester placental and fetal development

Mr. Daviault, a 72-year-old alcoholic, was charged with dragging a 65-year-old woman from her wheelchair and sexually assaulting her. This occurred after Mr. Daviault had consumed eight beers and 35 ounces of brandy. The majority of the Supreme Court of Canada (S.C.C.) allowed evidence of intoxication to be presented as a to this general intent offense. The S.C.C. held that evidence of intoxication was available in situations where the accused could establish that the act was not voluntary or the requisite intent was not formed as a result of a state of intoxication akin to insanity or automatism. This created an exception to the general rule that evidence of was allowed to be presented as a only to specific intent offenses. As a result of the decision in Daviault,1 evidence of intoxication could be presented as a to offenses of both specific and general intent. Daviault and decisions that followed Daviault2 illustrate the problem Parliament faced: that an accused may lack the blameworthy mental state necessary to convict him of assault but certainly not be morally blameless. Outcries from society demanded immediate legislative changes. Parliament responded quickly by introducing Bill C-72,3 an amendment to the Criminal Code intended to undo the change in the law that resulted from the S.C.C. decision in Daviault. Parliament proposed to return the law to its previous state by making it clear that the of was not available to any general intent offenses regardless of the level of intoxication. This paper puts the proposed amendment into context and evaluates Bill C-72 under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.4 The first section of this paper deals with the case law background of how criminal law has dealt with the intoxicated offender. The second section takes a detailed look at Parliament's suggested solution, Bill C-72. Sections three through five give an analysis of the Charter rights that may be infringed by the bill and evaluates the bill's chance of surviving a Charter challenge under s. 1. I: The case law before and after Daviault A) The law before5 the decision in Daviault It is common to talk of the defense of drunkenness; however, is not a defense. The more accurate terminology would be that there was a lack of mens rea. In this paper the term defence of drunkenness is used, but it is important to remember that evidence of intoxication has the effect of calling into question whether an essential element of the offense has been proved. If the Crown is unable to convince the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of all the essential elements of the offense, then the accused must be acquitted. The law draws a distinction between crimes that require specific intent and crimes that require only general intent. A general intent offense requires such a minimal mental element that the voluntary act itself could satisfy the necessary intent component. Drunkenness was believed to be incapable of negating this minimal intent. For a specific intent offense, the accused must be able to form the more specific intent that is set out in the Criminal Code. This specific intention cannot be inferred from the act. If a person's mind is severely clouded by alcohol or drugs to the point that he or she lacks the ability to form the specific intent to commit the crime, the accused must be acquitted. Before Daviault, evidence of intoxication was allowed before the trier of fact in relation to only specific intent offenses. General intent offenses required such a minimal mental element that the voluntary act itself could satisfy the necessary intent component. Extreme intoxication had been raised before in the S.C.C., but only in side comments.6 The issue of extreme intoxication as a in general intent offenses was unresolved. The S.C.C. was given the opportunity to provide an answer to this question in Daviault. …

Towards the global coverage of a unified registry of IVF outcomes.

In the human assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycle, endometrial receptivity is a key condition for embryo implantation and pregnancy, and thin endometrium is an important factor affecting endometrial receptivity. At present, the definition of thin endometrium is not very clear, most scholars believe that the thickness of endometrium ≤ 7 mm can be considered as thin endometrium. In women with ART, patients with thin endometrium account for about 2.4% of their cycles. The problem of thin endometrium in the ART cycle has been troubling many clinicians. In this paper, we review the receptivity of thin endometrium, etiology, pregnancy outcome in ART cycles, so as to provide a clinical summary and reference for improving the clinical pregnancy rate in the ART cycle. Key words: Thin endometrium; Endometrial receptivity; Reproductive technology, assisted; Pregnancy rate; Live birth rate

Cross-border reproductive care: an Ethics Committee opinion.

Human immunodeficiency virus and infertility treatment

Whether the Supreme Court of Canada can and should recognize so-called ‘positive’ rights (viz, rights that require the performance of certain actions, possibly including the provision of goods, by the government) under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms remains contentious. Binding Supreme Court of Canada precedent states that there are no positive Charter rights – at least under sections 7, 12, and 15 of the Charter, under which demands for positive action are most controversially raised – but positive aspects of Charter rights could be recognized in the future. Yet the circumstances under which recognition would be appropriate remain opaque. This work suggests that the law of precedent is a helpful tool for examining when recognition could be justified from both the institutional perspective of the Court’s internal norms and from an all-things-considered perspective. It is, at minimum, a useful framing mechanism for exploring the most difficult issues concerning the recognition of positive rights. Interestingly, application of the test suggests a break between when the Supreme Court of Canada could recognize positive rights according to its own norms and when it would be all-things-considered justified to do so. Yet, more importantly, the considerations raised by the law of precedent test also highlight a burden for future all-things-considered justified recognition and demonstrate how the judiciary can avoid the potential negative consequences of positive rights recognition if they choose to recognize them (e.g., where recognition of some form cannot be avoided in a contested case).

Aging and infertility in women: a committee opinion

Queer Bodies, Queer Technologies, and Queer Policies

Objective: The uterine cervix plays an important role of gatekeeper, therefore microorganism presents in vagina seldom infects the uterine cavity in normal condition. While in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) procedures, we use transfer tube to put the gametes and zygotes through cervix into uterine cavity. These procedures carry a risk of uterine infection and may lead to a tragic pregnancy result. The purpose of this study is to explore the rate of contamination while put transfer tube into uterine cavity, and the impact of contamination on pregnancy rate.Methods: We did the bacteria workup for the ART cases, including embryo transfer (ET) and intrauterine insemination (IUI), at Sin-Lau hospital from January 2006 to July 2006. Before transfer procedure, the cervix was copiously irrigated with warmed normal saline. During and after the transfer procedure, the transfer tip was kept away from touching vagina wall. The transfer tip was cut and collected with sterile scissor and send to the microorganism laboratory immediately. We also perform the PCR test for detection of C. trachomatis and N. gonorrhoeae.Results: In our data, none of our cases was positive for C. trachomatis and N. gonorrhoeae. In the IUI and IVF-ET cases, the bacteria culture positive rate was 79 % (38/48) and 65% (13/20) respectively. The pregnancy rate was 14.5% (7/48) in IUI group and 35% (7120) in IVF group. The abortion rate was 14% (1/7) in IUI group and 0% in IVF group. In the pregnancy cases of IUI and IVF-E T, the bacteria culture positive rate was 85% (6/7) (p=0.54) and 71% (5/7) (p=0.02l) respectively. There is no statistic difference between contamination and non-contamination group in the pregnancy rate. But in IVF cases, the contamination group has higher pregnancy rate than non-contamination group in IUI group. Most of the cultured bacteria were normal vagina bacteria flora such as coagulase negative staphylococcus (non-staphylococcus saprophyticas), gram (+) Bacillus, etc. In rare condition, we found some infection bacterial like Group B streptococcus (9.3 %) and Candia albicans (3%). One abortion case pregnant by IUI has contaminated by candida albicans.Conclusions: Although we find high positive culture rate on transfer tip in our ART cases. But it did not decrease our pregnancy outcome or increase abortion rate. The high positive culture rate alarms us to clean the cervix more thoroughly to decrease contamination.

Introduction(1) The addition of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Canada's Constitution in 1982 triggered a debate among scholars over the role of the Supreme Court in Canadian politics. At the center of this debate was the issue of whether the Charter transform the Canadian Court from a passive tribunal occupied mainly with settling federal-provincial jurisdictional disputes into an activist defender of civil rights and liberties (Manfredi 1993; Harvie and Foster 1990; Gold and Fuerst 1992). The question was, as Verney has aptly stated, would the American system of judicial review become the model for Canada? (1987, 190). Initially, some scholars used pre-Charter practices under the 1960 statutory Bill of Rights to predict the future role of the Court under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. MacKay (1983) argued that the Canadian Supreme Court probably not disregard its past judicial habits when making future Charter decisions, suggesting that the Court's weak civil libertarian record under the Bill of Rights dictate a future philosophy of judicial restraint. Slattery (1987) agreed, yet, unlike MacKay, he argued that the Court not overrule majoritarian legislative decisions given the qualifying sections within the text of the Charter (Section 1 and Section 33) and Canada's tradition of parliamentary supremacy. Other scholars predicted that the Canadian Court move in a decisively pro-civil rights direction after the Charter was added to the Constitution (Bender 1983; Russell 1982). Bender argued that since the general configuration of protected rights in Canada and the United States is similar in scope and range, activism on the part of the Canadian Court was inevitable. After analyzing the Constitution Act of 1982, Russell (1982) concluded that the Charter had sanctioned a major shift of power from the legislature to the judiciary and, thus, judicial activism necessarily follow. Indeed, subsequent studies have indicated that there are already signs of a more activist Canadian Court (Morton 1987; Morton et al. 1994; Morton et al. 1991; Knopff and Morton 1992; Manfredi 1993; Epp 1996). In this debate, Verney (1987) and Monahan (1987) have argued that, instead of assuming that the Canadian Court adopt the American style of judicial review, one must understand the changes taking place under the Charter in the Canadian cultural context. Thus, it is the belief of some scholars that, although the Canadian Court has moved in an activist direction in protecting individual rights in the post-Charter years, such a movement is bound to be limited in scope since the underlying cultural values of Canada and the United States are very different. The Canadian Culture Context as a Limiting Force on Individual Rights Some scholars, such as Lipset (1990) and Glendon (1991), believe Canada is a society based on a different organizing principle and value system than the United States. According to Lipset, since Canada derived its authority from the British monarchy and was initially comprised largely of Tory loyalists, it is not surprising that it formed a counterrevolutionary monarchical society which valued hierarchy in class relations and deference in politics so as to effect the collective good (2). He also argued that the spirit of such values can be found in the British North America Act, which enshrined the collective values of peace, order, and good government (8). Consequently, Canadians have historically emphasized a person's rights and obligations to the community at large rather than the rights of the individual (Lipset 1990). Subsequent authors, such as Maryanne Glendon, have argued that since Canadians are not as rights-conscious as Americans, they are more apt to balance individual rights with a person's duties and responsibilities to the community (12). As a result, they have developed a rational political discourse that encourages compromise and fosters more productive communication in confrontational situations. …