Family Law Prof Blog

Fetal Origins

From the Atlantic:

Researchers in the increasingly influential field known as fetal origins—the study of how fetal conditions affect long-term health—have to be pretty creative. Running controlled experiments on pregnant women is, after all, verboten. Still, scientists have made exciting finds in recent years by cleverly drawing on data from dramatic, naturally occurring “experiments.” By seeing what happens to fetuses when an entire population is exposed to, say, fasting, or mourning, or smog—conditions that would be deemed unethical if they were devised in a lab—we are gaining insights into how life before birth shapes life long afterward.

Read more here.

MR

5th Circuit on Breastfeeding

From Law.com:

While several new health studies health studies concerning breastfeeding are making the rounds, the topic has also been generating headlines in the employment law context, thanks to a recent Fifth Circuit ruling (as reported in Texas Lawyer's Tex Parte Blog) involving the firing of a woman because she wanted to use a breast pump at work.

According to the opinion, when Donnicia Venters spoke to her boss at Houston Funding about using a breast pump at work upon her return from maternity leave, her request was met with a long pause, then the news that her position had been filled. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought a Title VII action against Houston Funding, alleging the company had discriminated against Venters based upon her sex.

Read more here.

MR

Babies Sleeping in Cardboard Boxes--Normal in Finland

From Updated News:

For 75 years, Finland’s expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It’s like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world’s lowest infant mortality rates.

It’s a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it’s designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they’re from, an equal start in life.

The maternity package – a gift from the government – is available to all expectant mothers.

Read more here.

MR

Hat Tip: SH

Horrific Exam

From Daily Mail:

The University of Cambridge has defended a law exam described as 'horrific' by students because of its graphic depictions of oral sex, male rape and naked torture.

The university's renowned law faculty has used real-life scenarios for exams in the past, but many students were left shocked by its latest test questions.

Around 200 students sitting the exam on Saturday morning were presented with a scenario involving a fictional college drinking society's initiation ceremony which went on to describe several indecent assaults.

Read more here.

MR

Fewer Online Marriages Result in Divorce

From ars technica:

Like everything else, dating has moved online in recent years through a combination of organized dating services and incidental meetings (the Ars forums have enabled a number of matches). Now, a new survey of American households shows just how important this phenomenon has become: since 2005, a third of marriages were the result of online meetings, with nearly half of those coming through online dating services. The good news? Fewer relationships that started online ended up in divorce, and people were generally more satisfied with the ones that survived.

The numbers come from a survey sponsored by eHarmony, a dating site that frequently uses its advertisements to suggest that it makes matches based on psychologically validated personality profiles. As revealed in the conflict of interest statement, one of the researchers involved in the new study is a scientific advisor to eHarmony. But the researchers got the dating company to allow them to publish their survey analysis no matter what it showed, and the group hired an outside statistician to validate the work.

Read more here.

MR

Hat Tip: SH

FASFA Changes Consider Income of Same-Sex Partners

 From Erez Aloni, writing for the Huffington Post:

Under the purview of the Department of Education, the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will now include in its calculation of students' eligibility for financial aid the income of cohabiting, unmarried parents -- including same-sex spouses that are generally unrecognized by the federal government due to the Defense of Marriage Act. LGBTQ organizations have long fought for this legal change; indeed, our community has accepted it as a political victory. Gay activists and commentators argue that the new policy is more just because it reflects the real structure of families -- that it validates "LGBTQ families and experience." The Web is replete with stories of unfortunate children of same-sex couples who had to include only one parent in their applications in previous years (despite having two parents living together) and who suffered emotionally pain as a consequence (even in the face of typically larger tuition grants under the old policy).

Read more here.

MR

How Much Are We Working

See great charts from the Atlantic about how much we are working these days here.

MR

Harvard Admissions Letter

From the Washington Post:

A woman answers a letter from the Harvard Admissions Office from over half a century ago, inquiring into her plans for working while having a family.

Read it here.

MR

The Atlantic's Take on Marriage

The Atlantic has a series of interesting articles on marriage here.

MR

New Initiative on Shared Parenting

From Quantum Valeat:

A new organisation called Leading Women 4 Shared Parenting was launched recently.   

The organisation aims to bring together women from all walks of life who support and promote shared parenting (I prefer the term shared care), with a view to changing policy and perception.

Read more here, and see Leading Women 4 Shared Parenting here.

MR

The "Marriage Equation"

From Deborah Widiss (Indiana University Maurer School of Law), writing for the Atlantic:

Liza Mundy's recent article in The Atlantic suggests that same-sex couples can serve as a model for different-sex couples struggling to find a fair division of breadwinning and caretaking work. As I discuss more fully in a recent law review article, that might be true—but it is too soon to know. There are, as Mundy reports, many studies showing that same-sex couples typically divide such responsibilities more equally than different-sex couples. But these studies predate legal marriage for same-sex couples. Although they focus on same-sex couples in long-term committed relationships, most of the data was collected before their relationships were legally recognized at all. Furthermore, under the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), no same-sex couples currently count as "married" for federal purposes.

Read it here, and the law review article underyling the editorial here.

MR

AZ Abortion Ban

From Fox News:

A federal court Tuesday struck down Arizona's ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy absent a medical emergency.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law violated a woman's constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is able to survive outside the womb. "Viability" of a fetus is generally considered to start at 24 weeks. Normal pregnancies run about 40 weeks.

Read more here.

MR

Changes to FASFA

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

For the first time since the creation of the federal student-aid system, the income and assets of all of a would-be borrower's legal parents will be counted in the government's calculation of the student's need.

Until now, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, has collected financial information from only one parent if the parents are unmarried or are in a same-sex marriage. Starting with the 2014-15 form, the Education Department will gather information from both parents of dependent students, regardless of their marital status or gender.

Read more here.

MR

 

On Trusts

From ABA Now:

Same-sex couples who marry or join in civil unions face unique challenges to determine whether their partner qualifies as a beneficiary of their trusts, and attorneys must often navigate complex or unclear laws to guide their clients appropriately.

“State law is key on this issue,” said Ray Prather, an attorney at Prather Ebner LLP. In general, the Internal Revenue Service defines a trust as a relationship in which one person holds title to property, subject to an obligation to keep or use the property for the benefit of another. Trusts are often used to pass monetary benefits to a spouse through a third party. However, state laws vary on whether same-sex partners who are married qualify as spouses.

Read more here.

MR

Stay at Home Parents & Access to Credit

From Margaret Ryznar writing for the Huffington Post:

The rules on stay-at-home parents' access to credit have been reversed twice in the past four years but, interestingly, without much media attention along the way. This is despite the fundamental impact of the reversals on stay-at-home parents' ability to open a card in their names or to extend their credit lines without having a joint account with their spouses.

Read more here.

MR

Fostering in UK

Here's an article on the need for more foster families in the UK.

MR

One-Day Divorce Program

From the Wall Street Journal:

Thanks to law students, it now takes “seconds” for Sacramento County couples who filed for divorce to dissolve their marriages.

Student volunteers are the backbone behind the county’s new one-day divorce program. 

Read more here.

MR

IN Child Support for Child on Campus

From the Indiana Lawyer:

The Indiana Court of Appeals was presented with an issue for the first time: whether a child support order should be reduced for the time a child is living on campus when a court has found that the child has repudiated the non-custodial parent, and on that basis refused to enter an educational support order.

Read more here.

MR

Presumed Shared Parenting in NC

From PR Web:

On April 2, 2013, North Carolina State Senator Clodfelter filed Senate Bill 610 entitled “An Act to Amend the Laws Pertaining to Child Custody to Incorporate a Presumed Shared Parenting Standard”. Family law attorneys throughout the state, including those at Miller Bowles Law, have had strong reactions to and differing opinions regarding this proposed law and how it will affect their clients.

Read more here.

MR