Friday, October 26, 2012

Vote for William O'Neill, for The Ohio Supreme Court

Ohio voters, end bribery at the Ohio Supreme Court! Vote for William O'Neill, who is refusing all campaign contributions. His opponent, Robert Cupp receives huge contributions from people whose cases he will later rule on. Ohio Supreme Court justices do not recuse themselves from cases involving campaign contributors. 

http://www.oneillforjustice.com/

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

For Justice of the Supreme Court: Mike Skindell

Hey Ohio Voters,

This election incumbent Republican State Supreme Court Justice Terrence O'Donnell is being challenged by Democrat Mike Skindell. You might remember O'Donnell from this scathing exposé from the New York Times about corruption on the state's high court. Ohio Supreme Court elections are big money affairs, and Supreme court judges don't recuse themselves when major campaign donors appear before them. Instead, they just rule in favor of the people who gave them big money. O'Donnell is the worst offender, ruling for the people who gave him money 91% of the time.

The normally reliable Judge4yourself gives O'Donnell a higher rating. In this case, you shouldn't listen to them. They are aggregating recommendations from Bar Associations and newpapers, which aren't good sources for partisan elections at this high level.


Friday, October 19, 2012

Egg freezing--cross posted from my bioethics class.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has officially declared that the process of freezing human eggs for later use is no longer experimental. You can check out the story on NPR about it here. In particular ASRM found that success rate for older women using eggs frozen from younger women was as high as the success rate for young women using IVF. This means that more women will be freezing their eggs when they are young in case they want to get pregnant when they are old.

The NPR piece I linked to includes several quotes from people who are skeptical of this technique. One that was interesting to me was a comment from Adrienne Asch at Yeshiva University. She seems to say that society should make it easier for women to have children when they are young, rather than creating technologies that allow women to have children when they are old. "It's an example of using technology to solve social problems," she says.

If some women decide not to have children when they are young, because they cannot find a partner or want to pursue a career, is it really a social problem? Conversely, would it be a social problem if a lot of women starting having children in their 40s and 50s, after they have established careers?