This thesis explores the idea of the Natural Law by looking at the ideas of three thinkers: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and John Locke. It answers the question of what the Natural Law is, and further explains the derivative of this Natural Law, Natural Right. It further substantiates a relationship between the two. Finally, the thesis observes the prevalence these terms have in the American context, both in the Declaration of Independence as well as contemporary manifestations.

The potential empowerment of the UN System as a result of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine requires an examination of what it could mean for both state sovereignty and the authority of the UN Security Council. I argue that the Security Council is already a sovereign body within the international system that would be greatly empowered by the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the veto reform efforts of the Accountability, Transparency and Coherence (ACT) Group. I rely on Carl Schmitt’s influential definition of sovereignty and his key takeaways regarding the 1919 German constitution to illustrate the existence of two distinct levels of Schmittian-like sovereigns in the international system: state sovereigns and representative sovereigns. I will then describe the authority and structure of the Security Council followed by a brief case study of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intervention in Kosovo as an example of how real-life situations challenge the Security Council’s ability to exercise its role as a representative sovereign, including a discussion about how it can either fail to act or choose not to act and the difference between them. Afterwards, I will discuss the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and how it expands the relative power of representative sovereignty at the cost of reducing the relative power of state sovereignty, culminating in a discussion of what attempts to reform the veto power on the Security Council may do to the Council’s sovereignty. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the key takeaways of this paper and some further considerations.

Breast cancer affects about 12% of women in the US. Arguably, it is one of the most advertised cancers. Mammography became a popular tool of breast cancer screening in the 1970s, and patient-geared guidelines came from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the US Preventative Task Force (USPSTF). This research focuses on ACS guidelines, as they were the earliest as well as the most changed guidelines. Mammography guidelines changed over time due to multiple factors. This research has tracked possible causes of those changes. Research began with an extensive literature search of clinical trials, the New York Times and the Washington Post archives, systematic reviews, ACS and USPSTF archives.

By questioning methods of sex selection since their early development, and often discovering that they are unreliable, scientists have increased the creative and technological capacity of the field of reproductive health. The presentation of these methods to the public, via published books on timing methods and company websites for sperm sorting, increased interest in, and influence of, sex selection within the global society. The purpose of explaining the history, interest, development, and impact of various sex selection methods in the mid-twentieth century based on the information that is available on them today is to show couples which methods have failed and provide them with the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision on how they choose to go about utilizing methods of sex selection.

By demonstrating the struggle for sound standard of care for non-medical reproductive health care providers during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, this project emphasizes what the standards of reproductive health care for abortion and contraception might be like if the organizations that made them so readily available, like Planned Parenthood, were defunded or criminalized in our modern setting.

On 29 June 1988, in Bowen v. Kendrick, the US Supreme Court ruled in a five-to-four decision that the 1981 Adolescent Family Life Act, or AFLA, was constitutional. Under AFLA, the US government could distribute federal funding for abstinence-only sexual education programs, oftentimes given to groups with religious affiliations. As a federal taxpayer, Chan Kendrick challenged the constitutionality of AFLA, claiming it violated the separation of church and state. The Supreme Court found that although AFLA funded programs that aligned with certain religious ideologies, it was constitutional because it did not encourage government involvement in religion, and it held a valid secular purpose in seeking to prevent adolescent pregnancy and premarital sexual relations. By upholding AFLA, Bowen v. Kendrick enabled the US government to continue funding abstinence-only education, which researchers have found to be ineffective.

In 1997, physicians and researchers Ambre Olsen, Virginia Smith, John Bergstrom, Joyce Colling, and Amanda Clark published, “Epidemiology of Surgically Managed Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Urinary Incontinence,” in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. In their article, the authors retrospectively analyzed data from patients who underwent surgery for pelvic organ prolapse or urinary incontinence two years prior in 1995. Often due to a weakening of or damage to their pelvic muscles, women with pelvic organ prolapse can experience a descent of pelvic organs into the lower pelvis and vagina. People with urinary incontinence can experience bladder control issues and urinary leaks. According to the authors, an estimated fifty percent of women who have previously given birth have had a prolapse. In their article, Olsen and colleagues analyze factors such as race, age, and weight in women who had surgery to treat pelvic organ prolapse and ultimately advocate for a standard assessment for the severity of those conditions.

In 1996, a team of researchers associated with the International Continence Society published “The Standardization of Terminology of Female Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction” in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Pelvic organ prolapse is characterized by the descent of the pelvic organs into the lower portion of the pelvis and is often caused by a weakening of the muscles and ligaments that normally hold the organs in place. The authors concluded that physicians and researchers needed to develop a system of standardized terms to use to describe the anatomical position of pelvic organ prolapse in women. They propose using terms that emphasize the location of the prolapse rather than just the involved organ. They also suggest that the system utilizes a series of examinations and imaging to uniformly describe and quantify pelvic organ prolapse. The article by Bump and colleagues was one of the first to call for a standardized system using specific terms to communicate findings about pelvic organ prolapse systematically across clinical and academic research settings.

In 2013, Cynthia Daniels and a team of researchers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, founded the Informed Consent Project. Daniels and the researchers assessed the medical accuracy of information within state-authored informational materials for abortion. States give those materials to women who want an abortion, but using their research, the Informed Consent Project found some information from those materials to be inaccurate, misleading, and coercive. The Informed Consent Project gathered a panel of researchers and medical specialists to review the information about embryological and fetal development from twenty-three states’ informational materials. They found that approximately one-third of that information was inaccurate. The work of the Informed Consent Project challenges abortion-specific informed consent laws, highlighting medical inaccuracies in state-authored informational materials as evidence that women’s consent to abortion may be based on false or misleading statements.