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Conflicting Rights of Privacy and the Duty of Disclosure Between Sexual Partners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2021

Roger L. Kohn
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Extract

Although only historians in the future will know, it appears that non-marital and unconventional sexual relations between individuals today are on the increase. One of the more notable landmarks of this trend is the case, Marvin v. Marvin, in which the court recognized the rights of unmarried cohabitants. Individuals now seek wider legal recognition of a variety of interpersonal relationships and, by so doing, are rejecting the limitations of society's traditional agreement, marriage.

This article examines a small subset of the legal interactions and consequences when individuals establish non-marital relationships. Two types of situations and cases will be examined—“reluctant paternity” and the transmission of herpes simplex disease. These may turn out to be unimportant legal curiosities, but they are useful for examining the conflict of rights of privacy and duties of disclosure (right to information) in intimate (here, sexual) interactions between two people. The cases to be examined in detail are in areas of great flux, where a court in one state cites to recently overturned decisions in another state's courts.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 11 , Issue 6 , December 1983 , pp. 264 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1983

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