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Full-Text Articles in Law

Pregnancy And The Carceral State, Khiara M. Bridges Apr 2021

Pregnancy And The Carceral State, Khiara M. Bridges

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood. by Michele Goodwin.


The Scales Of Reproductive Justice: Casey’S Failure To Rebalance Liberty Interests In The Racially Disparate State Of Maternal Medicine, Mallori D. Thompson Feb 2021

The Scales Of Reproductive Justice: Casey’S Failure To Rebalance Liberty Interests In The Racially Disparate State Of Maternal Medicine, Mallori D. Thompson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Despite the maternal medicine crisis in the U.S., especially for Black women, legislatures are challenging constitutional abortion doctrine and forcing women to interact with a system that may cost them their lives. This Article proposes that because of abysmal maternal mortality rates and the arbitrary nature of most abortion restrictions, the right to choose an abortion is embedded in our Fourteenth Amendment right to not be arbitrarily deprived of life by the State. This Article is a call to abortion advocates to begin submitting state maternal mortality data when challenging abortion restrictions. The call for attention to life was central …


Unduly Burdening Women’S Health: How Lower Courts Are Undermining Whole Woman’S Health V. Hellerstedt, Leah M. Litman Jan 2017

Unduly Burdening Women’S Health: How Lower Courts Are Undermining Whole Woman’S Health V. Hellerstedt, Leah M. Litman

Michigan Law Review Online

At the end of the Supreme Court’s 2016 Term, the Court issued its decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. One of the more closely watched cases of that Term, Hellerstedt asked whether the Supreme Court would adhere to its prior decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed that women have a constitutionally protected right to decide to end a pregnancy.

The state of Texas had not formally requested that the Court revisit Casey or the earlier decision Casey had affirmed, Roe v. Wade, in Hellerstedt. But that was what Texas was, in effect, asking …


Confrontation And Domestic Violence Post-Davis: Is There And Should There Be A Doctrinal Exception, Eleanor Simon Jan 2011

Confrontation And Domestic Violence Post-Davis: Is There And Should There Be A Doctrinal Exception, Eleanor Simon

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Close to five million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against women in the United States annually. Domestic violence accounts for twenty percent of all non-fatal crime experienced by women in this county. Despite these statistics, many have argued that in the past six years the Supreme Court has "put a target on [the] back" of the domestic violence victim, has "significantly eroded offender accountability in domestic violence prosecutions," and has directly instigated a substantial decline in domestic violence prosecutions. The asserted cause is the Court's complete and groundbreaking re-conceptualization of the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal …


Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks Jan 2010

Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article uses the term contingent equal protection to describe the constitutional analysis that applies to a range of governmental efforts to ameliorate race and sex hierarchies. "Contingent" refers to the fact that the equal protection analysis is contingent upon the existence of structural, de facto inequality. Contingent equal protection cases include those that involve explicit race and sex classifications, facially neutral efforts to reduce inequality, and accommodation of sex differences to promote equality. Uniting all three kinds of cases under a single conceptual umbrella reveals the implications that developments in one area can have for the other two.


Striking The Rock: Confronting Gender Equality In South Africa, Penelope E. Andrews Jan 1998

Striking The Rock: Confronting Gender Equality In South Africa, Penelope E. Andrews

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article analyzes the status of women's rights in the newly democratic South Africa. It examines rights guaranteed in the Constitution and conflicts between the principle of gender equality and the recognition of indigenous law and institutions. The Article focuses on the South African transition to democracy and the influence that feminist agitation at the international level has had on South African women's attempts at political organization. After dissecting the historical position of customary law in South Africa and questioning its place in the new democratic regime. The author argues that, although South African women have benefited from the global …


Ru 486 Examined: Impact Of A New Technology On An 0 Id Controversy, Gwendolyn Prothro Jun 1997

Ru 486 Examined: Impact Of A New Technology On An 0 Id Controversy, Gwendolyn Prothro

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Abortion is an extremely divisive issue in American politics and culture. Prothro begins this Article by analyzing the current legal standards governing reproduction, which draw a sharp distinction between abortion and contraception. Prothro then examines the function of RU 486, demonstrating that it acts both as a contraceptive and as an abortifacient. Because of this dual capacity, RU 486 does not fit neatly into the current legal framework. Prothro concludes this Article by arguing that RU 486 should force the Supreme Court to create a new framework for the "procreative right." Prothro argues that this new framework should treat the …


Homologizing Pregnancy And Motherhood: A Consideration Of Abortion, Julia E. Hanigsberg Nov 1995

Homologizing Pregnancy And Motherhood: A Consideration Of Abortion, Julia E. Hanigsberg

Michigan Law Review

In this essay I reconsider abortion in order to bridge what initially seem to be two opposing frameworks: first, the conception of abortion as an issue of women's bodily integrity and liberty, and second, the acknowledgement of the existence and meaning of intrauterine life. The abortion choice is indeed deeply and necessarily tied to women's bodily integrity. I will discuss how taking away women's ability to control their decision not to become mothers can be severely damaging to their very sense of self, for this denial of decisionmaking divides women from their wombs and uses their wombs for a purpose …


The Countermajoritarian Paradox, Neal Davis May 1995

The Countermajoritarian Paradox, Neal Davis

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. by David J. Garrow


Constitutional Misconceptions, Radhika Rao May 1995

Constitutional Misconceptions, Radhika Rao

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies by John A. Robertson


Life's Sacred Value—Common Ground Or Battleground, Alexander Morgan Capron May 1994

Life's Sacred Value—Common Ground Or Battleground, Alexander Morgan Capron

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom by Ronald Dworkin


A Question Of Choice, Michele A. Estrin May 1993

A Question Of Choice, Michele A. Estrin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Question of Choice by Sarah Weddington


"But Whoever Treasures Freedom…": The Right To Travel And Extraterritorial Abortions, Seth F. Kreimer Mar 1993

"But Whoever Treasures Freedom…": The Right To Travel And Extraterritorial Abortions, Seth F. Kreimer

Michigan Law Review

In a prior article, I addressed the problem of extraterritorial abortions under the assumption that the federal constitutional right of reproductive choice would be repudiated by the Supreme Court on Justice Scalia's theory that such rights lack sufficiently deep roots in the history and traditions surrounding the framing of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment. I argued there that a constitutional methodology that relied on traditions and expectations of the Framers would provide a strong basis for concluding that the Constitution imposes severe limits on states' power to project their moralities extraterritorially. If Justice Scalia is serious about a regard …


Conflict Of Constitutions? No Thanks: A Response To Professors Brilmayer And Kreimer, Gerald L. Neuman Mar 1993

Conflict Of Constitutions? No Thanks: A Response To Professors Brilmayer And Kreimer, Gerald L. Neuman

Michigan Law Review

This colloquy was organized around the unpleasant hypothesis that the Supreme Court would overrule Roe v. Wade and that Congress would not fill the resulting void with federal legislation. The abortion debate would then move to the states, where local majorities could enact their own resolutions. If the local majorities were large enough, they could even write their local resolutions into their state constitutions. The contrasting state constitutions that could result might then replicate the comparativists' current juxtaposition between the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of Germany and Ireland. In some states, prohibition of abortion would be constitutionally required, while …


Why We Lost The Era, Judith L. Hudson May 1988

Why We Lost The Era, Judith L. Hudson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Why We Lost the ERA


The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz Dec 1987

The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …


Of Cultural Determinism And The Limits Of Law, Paul R. Dimond, Gene Sperling Feb 1985

Of Cultural Determinism And The Limits Of Law, Paul R. Dimond, Gene Sperling

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell


The Law Giveth…Legal Aspects Of The Abortion Controversy, Michigan Law Review Feb 1984

The Law Giveth…Legal Aspects Of The Abortion Controversy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Law Giveth…Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy by Barbara Milbauer


Abortion, Politics, And The Courts: Roe V. Wade And Its Aftermath, Michigan Law Review Feb 1984

Abortion, Politics, And The Courts: Roe V. Wade And Its Aftermath, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Abortion, Politics, and the Courts: Roe v. Wade and Its Aftermath by Eva R. Rubin


Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge Oct 1983

Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note contends that the "primary/secondary" modification is unconstitutional because it ignores the husband's equal protection rights while unlawfully stigmatizing women as dependent. Part I discusses how the growing independence of women has led courts to modify the common law doctrine. Part II develops the test that the Supreme Court would apply in judging the constitutionality of any modification of the doctrine. Part III applies this test to the "primary/secondary" modification and concludes that the modification is unconstitutional and, therefore, not a legitimate reformation of the common law necessaries doctrine.


The Abortion-Funding Cases And Population Control: An Imaginary Lawsuit (And Some Reflections On The Uncertain Limits Of Reproductive Privacy), Susan Frelich Appleton Aug 1979

The Abortion-Funding Cases And Population Control: An Imaginary Lawsuit (And Some Reflections On The Uncertain Limits Of Reproductive Privacy), Susan Frelich Appleton

Michigan Law Review

Two issues are before us today: (I) the meaning of the term "medically necessary" in a public hospital's charter and (II) the constitutionality of state action that provides free medical treatment to indigent pregnant women seeking an abortion but denies them such assistance for prenatal care and childbirth. On the basis of recent Supreme Court authority, we find that such action violates neither the hospital's charter nor the United States Constitution.


Preferential Remedies For Employment Discrimination, Harry T. Edwards, Barry L. Zaretsky Nov 1975

Preferential Remedies For Employment Discrimination, Harry T. Edwards, Barry L. Zaretsky

Michigan Law Review

A basic thesis of this article is that much of the current concern about alleged "reverse discrimination" in employment ignores the reality of the situation. In Part I it will be contended that although color blindness is a laudable long-run objective, it alone will not end discrimination; thus, it will be argued that some form of "color conscious" affirmative action must be employed in order to achieve equal employment opportunity for minorities and women. The most effective form of affirmative action is temporary preferential treatment, and it will be asserted in Part II that such relief can be justified under …


Constitutional Reflections On Abortion Reform, Patrick L. Baude Jan 1970

Constitutional Reflections On Abortion Reform, Patrick L. Baude

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

United States abortion law is evolving comparably. Even eight years ago, public opinion was deeply divided when a Phoenix housewife sought to avoid giving birth after taking Thalidomide. The Model Penal Code, promulgated that year, authorized abortion in cases of felonious intercourse, to avoid deformity, and to protect the physical or mental health of the mother; these faintly daring innovations are now in danger of being declared unconstitutional because they are too limited. In the last year, three courts have invalidated moderate abortion statutes and the New York legislature has permitted abortion at will in early pregnancy. The purpose of …