Forced Abortions & Sterilizations in Massachusetts?

Occasionally, I read or hear about something so stunning that I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience, watching from a detached vantage point as the world unfurls strangely in front of me. Yesterday afternoon, I had one of those experiences. I was at work, pausing to check the headlines, weather and traffic, when I saw the surreal headline: “Massachusetts Appeals Court rules that judge was wrong to order mentally ill woman to have an abortion and to then be sterilized”. Forced abortions and sterilizations in Massachusetts? Granted, the court-ord...

Shaping the Legal Meanings of Elemental Concepts

"Where do the legal meanings of such elemental concepts as ‘birth,’ ‘death,’ and ‘family’ take shape?" she asked. "Largely in state courts.” SJC chief justice says state courts are in crisis – The Boston Globe Margaret Marshall, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, opining on the criticality of the state courts to the orderly functioning of society. This is the woman primarily responsible for fabricating the legal right for homosexual couples in Massachusetts to call their par...