Glenn Cohen

A judge in Tennessee is giving inmates a unique way to reduce their sentences: Have a vasectomy. The program was issued in May after Judge Sam Benningfield signed a standing order, which permitted inmates to have their sentences shortened by 30 days in exchange for the sterilizing procedure...Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School, said the program was a "bad policy," and pointed to prior court rulings, which set a precedent that could make Benningfield's order unconstitutional. "The approach of this judge is constitutionally questionable. In Skinner v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court indicated it violated the Constitution to impose sterilization as a punishment for a criminal," Cohen wrote in an email. "This case is slightly different, though, in that it involves sentencing."

...The practice of commissioning a cheaper surrogate from a poorer country has long been a controversial one...While it’s impossible to know “what’s presented to you versus what’s really occurring,” Harvard Law School Professor I. Glenn Cohen said, fertility tourists should ask about the welfare of surrogates, including the conditions of their housing, how much of the fee they’re allowed to keep and whether they’ll be penalized for getting an abortion if something goes wrong with the pregnancy. The commissioning couple also should ask about guarantees that their sperm and eggs will be used to make their embryos. Additionally, they should investigate the parentage laws of the country they’re visiting ― and returning home to ― and whether both people in a same-sex marriage will be listed on the birth certificate.

Harvard Law Professor [Glenn Cohen] joins Sean to discuss a study he and a Harvard group did on player safety in the NFL, how the game can be made more safe, and the future of football.

**Correction: This story was misattributed to Alex Whiting in yesterday's News@Law. An interview with Glenn Cohen. DNA kits are very popular these days with people wanting to know what countries their ancestors came from. But before seeking out the secrets of your family tree, make sure you read the fine print.

An interview with Glenn Cohen. DNA kits are very popular these days with people wanting to know what countries their ancestors came from. But before seeking out the secrets of your family tree, make sure you read the fine print.

Nearly 40 years after the world was jolted by the birth of the first test-tube baby, a new revolution in reproductive technology is on the horizon -- and it promises to be far more controversial than in vitro fertilization ever was. Within a decade or two, researchers say, scientists will likely be able to create a baby from human skin cells that have been coaxed to grow into eggs and sperm and used to create embryos to implant in a womb...Three prominent academics in medicine and law sounded an alarm about the possible consequences in a paper published this year. “I.V.G. may raise the specter of ‘embryo farming’ on a scale currently unimagined, which might exacerbate concerns about the devaluation of human life,” Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, a medical science professor at Brown; I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor; and Dr. George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

...The sport of football, in 2017, is in a state of intense self-scout. The reasons are many: self-preservation, love for the game, fear of the game, concern for the livelihood, a desire to find concrete answers to nebulous questions. Etc. It’s in this landscape that Harvard researchers released a new report today about the health and safety practices for players at the game’s highest level. It’s part of the Football Players Health Study, a long-term project funded through the NFL Players’ Association by money set aside in the 2011 collective bargaining agreement...“We are in a moment where [because of] people’s attitudes toward football and toward the health risks of football, these conversations have to happen,” says I. Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law School professor and a co-author of the study.

The physical demands are different. The types and severity of injuries are different. And the economics can vary wildly. But there are several common threads shared by professional sports leagues when it comes to health and safety issues, and a new report from the Harvard Law School is seeking to identify, study and compare them...“In terms of employee benefits, we think the NFL actually offers many employee benefits that Fortune 500 companies and many good employers do not,” said Harvard’s Glenn Cohen, one of the study’s co-authors...“Where players have only played one or two seasons (and perhaps games), there might be questions as to whether it is appropriate to provide lifetime health insurance to someone who was employed for such a short period of time,” states the report, which was co-written with Christopher Deubert and Holly Fernandez Lynch.

...The 14-day rule is an ethical line past which cultured human embryos are not to continue developing outside the body. It is protected by law in 12 countries, including the United Kingdom, and acts as a guideline in five, including the United States....Some critics view calls to re-evaluate the 14-day rule as a pernicious moving of the goalposts. How meaningful can they be, the line of reasoning goes, if scientists want to change rules as soon as they bump up against them? “There were disagreements about the rationale and validity of the 14-day rule before this point, but no one in the research community really pushed the issue because it was not particularly important,” says Glenn Cohen, a Harvard bioethicist. “There is nothing wrong with pragmatic necessity driving us to start a re-examination process.”

A Miami-based neurologist who has treated Florida Panther players says a "turf war" is preventing neurologists from being represented on the National Hockey League's Concussion Subcommittee. Since 1997, the subcommittee has been advising the league on how best to treat players who suffer head injuries and brain trauma...One Harvard University law professor says that the NHL should overhaul its medical structure to free team doctors and trainers from any real or perceived conflicts of interest. Glenn Cohen, a Montreal native who is the director of Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics, published a report in November that urged the NFL to adopt new guidelines for team medical staff so doctors who treat players are not required to report to coaches and other team management. "For both the NFL or the NHL, whenever you have a club physician who is trying to serve both the interests of an injured player and management, there's a recipe for an ethically problematic state of affairs," Cohen said in an interview this week.

An article by Andrew Hellman `19 and Glenn Cohen. Many children conceived using donor sperm or eggs want to know their biological parents. In the US, some clinics make the identity of the sperm donor available to a donor-conceived child at age 18. Most intending parents, though, choose sperm donation programs that do not reveal the identities of the sperm donors – so-called 'anonymous sperm donation' (though some have questioned whether true anonymity is possible in a world of social media and direct-to-consumer genetic testing).

A dozen years ago, when Jeff Foster first came to National Football Scouting, the company that runs the NFL combine, he surveyed all 32 teams. The sport’s biggest job fair has four components — an on-field workout, medical testing, player interviews and psychological testing — and Foster wanted to know what teams valued the most. “All 32 teams said medical was No. 1,” Foster explained recently. “All 32 teams said interviews were No. 2.”...While there could be a gray area between tests that measure performance and those that examine health, Glenn Cohen, a Harvard law professor who co-authored the study, says the list of questionable exams the NFL requires of draft prospects is long: heart tests, blood tests, X-rays and MRI exams, psychological tests, even exams measuring eyesight or range of motion.

The Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade is one of the most controversial the justices have ever considered. Since the 1973 decision, it has been a lightning rod, causing emotional and political reactions on a regular basis. But what did the high court’s decision actually do? And could Roe survive a more conservative court? We talked about that with Harvard Law Professor Glenn Cohen, an expert in reproductive technology and related topics.

With control of the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and at least one Supreme Court seat to fill, the GOP will have the opportunity to make sweeping changes in the next four years. Since opposing abortion is part of the Republican Party's platform, Americans can expect a reproductive-rights fight will be part of the agenda...Glenn Cohen, a health-law expert and professor at Harvard Law School, said two kinds of laws provide the most likely paths for SCOTUS to overturn or undermine Roe. The first are known as fetal-pain laws. They aim to ban abortions when a fetus can feel pain, which legislators typically claim is after 20 weeks, though scientists disagree...The second kind of law is what reproductive rights activists call Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws, that impose strict requirements on abortion clinics and providers.

An op-ed by Christopher T. Robertson, Holly Fernandez Lynch, and I. Glenn Cohen. In the waning days of his administration, President Obama encouraged Americans to take advantage of the opportunity to get health insurance in what may be the last open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act. Given the incessant chatter about the incoming administration’s plans to “repeal,” “repeal and delay,” or “repeal and replace” the act, is this just a fool’s errand — wasted effort adding more people to the slate of millions who will lose coverage if the ACA gets dismantled as promised? Perhaps. Or perhaps Obama is seeking to capitalize on the well-studied phenomenon known as loss aversion. In a nutshell, loss aversion means that it feels worse to lose something than never to have had it in the first place. Consumers, including those signing up for health insurance, tend to make relative judgments about their own welfare, rather than absolute judgments, and losses loom larger than gains.