Since the November elections state legislatures across the country have been implementing measures to restrict abortions, and challenges to these laws are appearing in many states. On Tuesday a federal judge blocked several provisions of a new Texas abortion law [JURIST report] that places restrictions on the procedure and requires a doctor to show a sonogram to and play the sounds of the fetal heartbeat for a woman prior to performing an abortion. Earlier this month the Arizona Court of Appeals [official website] ended a two-year injunction [JURIST report] on portions of a law that restricted abortion practices, suggesting that the lower judge had applied "strict scrutiny" in error rather than an "undue burden" test. Also this month the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit challenging a Kansas law [JURIST report] that prohibits insurance companies from including coverage for abortion in their comprehensive plans.

Due to the advantages arising from their scale and scope of coverage, each of the Big Four nationwide carriers is especially well-positioned to drive competition, at both a national and local level, in this industry. T-Mobile in particular—a company with a self-described "challenger brand," that historically has been a value provider, and that even within the past few months had been developing and deploying "disruptive pricing" plans—places important competitive pressure on its three larger rivals, particularly in terms of pricing, a critically important aspect of competition. AT&T's elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market.

The worldwide consolidation of media is an ongoing global concern. Earlier this month a class action lawsuit was filed [JURIST report] against Apple [corporate website] and five major publishers for allegedly colluding to illegally fix electronic book (e-book) prices. In a Hotline article published last month [JURIST comment] Dave Saldana, Communication Director for Free Press, used the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile deal as an example of the enormous influence giant media corporations can bring to bear through massive public relations blitzes and the acquisition of political influence through the pouring of money into lobbying efforts and campaign contributions. As a result of exactly these kinds of efforts, AT&T had remained confident to this point that its T-Mobile purchase would go through, "because it knows it has several hundred million reasons to push for the merger, and millions of means to get it." In that sense antitrust concern regarding media consolidation is doubly founded, because unlike manufacturing or other traditional industry mergers, the resultant titans of media created through already-giant media company mergers not only dominate their own marketplace, but the information market as well, giving them leverage to sway public opinion and dominate the narrative when their own practices are questioned.

The continuing violence against protesters in Syria has not gone unnoticed. Last week, during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile], who noted that more than 2,000 people had been killed since the protests began, including hundreds during the month of Ramadan, urged the Syrian government to stop its indiscriminate attacks on peaceful protesters and to release all persons detained for participating in those protests. During this special session, the UNHRC voted 33-4 to adopt a resolution [JURIST report] ordering an investigation into crimes against humanity in Syria and urging the Syrian government once again to halt its violent crackdown against peaceful protesters. The UNHRC began last week's session to discuss the possibility of an investigation after the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] published a 22-page report concluding that Syrian government forces may be committing crimes against humanity [JURIST report]. The session was held in response to a plea [JURIST report] from Pillay earlier this month to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] for an investigation into the violent suppression of anti-government protests.

The net result of these provisions is: (1) a physician is required to say things and take expressive actions with which the physician may not ideologically agree, and which the physician may feel are medically unnecessary; (2) the pregnant woman must not only passively receive this potentially unwanted speech and expression, but must also actively participate;in the best case by simply signing an election form, and in the worst case by disclosing in writing extremely personal, medically irrelevant facts; and (3) the entire experience must be memorialized in records that are, at best, semi-private. In the absence of a sufficiently weighty government interest, and a sufficiently narrow statute advancing that interest, neither of which have been argued by Defendants, the Constitution does not permit such compulsion.

Texas is only one of many states that have recently enacted, and subsequently had to defend, laws restricting abortions. With courts analyzing these cases differently, the outcomes have varied. Earlier this month, the Arizona Court of Appeals [official website] ended a two-year injunction [JURIST report] on portions of a law that restricted abortion practices. The original injunction by the Maricopa County Superior Court [official website] held the following provisions as "undue burdens" on a woman's right to an abortion: prohibitions on anyone but a licensed physician performing an abortion; a requirement that women meet with the doctor personally 24 hours before an abortion (the injunction held that a phone call would suffice); that medical professionals have a right to refuse to perform even medically necessary abortions, provide certain contraceptives or the "morning after" pill; and a mandate that parents' consent forms allowing their child to get an abortion be notarized. The appeals court reinstated all of these stipulations, suggesting that the lower judge had applied "strict scrutiny" in error rather than an "undue burden" test. Planned Parenthood of Arizona [advocacy website], a party to the original suit, said the law's enactment will have a severe impact on women in the state, many of whom have to take day-trips to have abortions. It is unknown if they will appeal.

Bolivian officials requested extradition [JURIST report] of Sanchez de Lozada and two other defendants from the US to face trial under a 1995 extradition treaty. A defense lawyer for victims' families made another plea for extradition [La Razon report, in Spanish] after Tuesday's convictions. However, the US has consistently refused to extradite Sanchez de Lozada, and his lawyers reports he resides in the US legally and maintains the prosecutions are political. The 2003 riots [BBC report] occurred when military forces clashed with predominantly indigenous farmers, coca growers, students and unionists who protested Sanchez de Lozada's attempts to open up the country to free trade with the US and to export gas and other natural resources. The protests were led by his former political rival and current Bolivian President Evo Morales [BBC profile; JURIST news archive].

The death of Bruce Beeler at a relatively young age before he and Patti Beeler could conceive children is profoundly sad. But whether the granting of child's insurance benefits to B.E.B., a posthumously conceived child, would further the purposes of the Social Security Act is debatable, given the Act's "basic aim of primarily helping those children who lost support after the unanticipated death of a parent." It is unlikely that Members of Congress contemplated this precise question when enacting the relevant provisions of the Act in the 1930s and 1960s. At a minimum, however, the Act permits the longstanding position of the SSA, if the Act does not require it. As the law now stands, it resolves the question of eligibility for child's insurance benefits by reference to state intestacy law, and Iowa law did not provide B.E.B. with intestacy rights at the time of the agency's final decision in this litigation.

IVF is a type of fertility treatment for couples who have had difficulty conceiving children. Through IVF, a woman's eggs are removed and fertilized outside the body. Successfully fertilized embryos are then implanted into the woman for gestation. Although it is becoming a widely accepted practice, many nations have had difficulty fitting this approach to conception into their legal structures. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) [official website] in August filed suit [JURIST report] in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights [official website, in Spanish] to challenge Costa Rica's longstanding ban on IVF. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] in Strasbourg ruled in 2007 that a British woman could not have frozen embryos conceived with a former partner implanted without his consent [JURIST report]. Natallie Evans and Howard Johnston entered an IVF program in 2001 and Johnson agreed to the implantation of the embryos, but later withdrew his consent after the breakup of the couple.