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Full-Text Articles in Law

Slavery Rhetoric And The Abortion Debate, Debora Threedy Jan 1994

Slavery Rhetoric And The Abortion Debate, Debora Threedy

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

There are many things that could be, and have been, said about the question of abortion. This article focuses on the rhetoric of the abortion debate. Specifically, I discuss how both sides of the abortion debate have appropriated the image of the slave and used that image as a rhetorical tool, a metaphor, in making legal arguments. Further, I examine the effectiveness of this metaphor as a rhetorical tool. Finally, I question the purposes behind this appropriation, and whether it reflects a lack of sensitivity to the racial content of the appropriated image.


Law And Language(S): Image, Integration And Innovation, Margaret E. Montoya Jan 1994

Law And Language(S): Image, Integration And Innovation, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

Examining the complex relationship between law and language enhances our understanding of the marginalization and subordination of linguistic Outsiders. This nexus between law and language has many manifestations. In this essay I discuss the biases about language that constrain traditional legal discourse while I explore strategies for its reframing by using the languages of Outsiders. Succinctly stated, this essay posits that traditional language norms create images or maintain stereotypes that stultify public discourse as well as impose cultural integration and linguistic assimilation with destructive consequences. The essay proposes that linguistic norms in law schools can be refashioned through pedagogical innovations …