Moore is Less
By Osagie K. Obasogie and Helen Theung,
Stanford Technology Law Review
| 01. 15. 2013
Why the Development of Pluripotent Stem Cells Might Lead Us to Rethink Differential Property Interests in Excised Human Cells
Since Moore v. Regents of the University of California, there has been a wide-ranging debate regarding the holding of the case and its implications for property law. Moore stands for the notion that individuals do not have a property interest in ordinary cells taken from their bodies during medical procedures nor the commercial products that researchers might develop from them. At the same time, cases such as Davis v. Davis and Hecht v. Superior Court have asserted that individuals maintain a property interest in other types of cells—namely embryos and gametes (eggs and sperm)—once they are removed from the body. This, among other developments, has led to a fragmented regime in property law pertaining to excised biological materials that turns, in large part, on the type of cell in question: individuals have a diminished interest in regular somatic cells (skin, muscle, etc.) while courts have recognized that people retain a heightened property interest in reproductive cells such as sperm, eggs, and embryos. The articulated reason for the differential property interests in these two cell types is that embryos and gametes...
Related Articles
By Katie LaGrone, WPTV | 06.28.2024
Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash
TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa jury recently found the now-defunct Lung Institute in Tampa guilty of engaging in “deceptive or unfair practices” while it offered customers “valueless” stem cell therapy to treat incurable...
By Gilma Avalos, NBC | 07.03.2024
Image by Josh Appel from Unsplash
The dream of becoming parents is turning into a nightmare for hundreds of people caught up in a surrogacy money scandal.
Some of the individuals are facing infertility or medical challenges, seeing surrogacy as...
By Michael Hiltzik, LA Times | 07.02.2024
Photo by Claire Anderson on Unsplash
Second only to the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday on when presidents are immune from criminal prosecution, the biggest case of the court’s recently completed session involved the age-old conflict between judges and government regulators...
By Sonia Suter and Naomi Cahn, PET | 07.01.2024
Image by Dusdn5959 from Wikimedia Commons
Since the US Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade (see BioNews 1147), there have been worries about the future of IVF in the USA. Both abortion and IVF involve decisions...