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Full-Text Articles in Law
Body And Soul: Equality, Pregnancy, And The Unitary Right To Abortion, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Body And Soul: Equality, Pregnancy, And The Unitary Right To Abortion, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Publications
This Article explores equality-based arguments for abortion rights, revealing both their necessity and their pitfalls. It first uses the narrowness of the "health exception" to abortion regulations to demonstrate why equality arguments are needed--namely because our legal tradition's conception of liberty is based on male experience, no theory of basic human rights grounded in women's reproductive experiences has developed. Next, however, the Article shows that equality arguments, although necessary, can undermine women's reproductive freedom by requiring that pregnancy and abortion be analogized to male experiences. As a result, equality arguments focus on either the bodily or the social aspect of …
The Invisible Woman: Availability And Culpability In Reproductive Health Jurisprudence, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
The Invisible Woman: Availability And Culpability In Reproductive Health Jurisprudence, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid
University of Colorado Law Review
Women's health is widely assumed to be a significant consideration in reproductive rights cases. Court decisions relating to contraception, abortion, and childbirth demonstrate that while this assumption may have historical validity, consideration of women's health is often truncated in recent reproductive rights jurisprudence. This occurs, in part, through the application of one or both of two recurring tools. First, judges regularly-and often inaccurately-cite the theoretical availability of alternative reproductive health services as proof that women's health will not suffer even if a law curtailing reproductive rights is upheld. I label this the "availability tool." Second, when alternatives are not available, …