Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Abortion Disorientation, Greer Donley, Caroline M. Kelly

Articles

The word “abortion” pervades public discourse in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But do we know what it means? Not only do law and medicine define it differently; state legislatures have codified wildly different definitions of abortion across jurisdictions. Our analysis exposes inherent ambiguities at the boundaries of the term, particularly as abortion intersects with other categories that we often think of as distinct: pregnancy loss, ectopic pregnancy, and other forms of medically necessary care. By juxtaposing statutory text next to real people’s experiences of being denied care in states with abortion bans, we reveal …

Privacy: Pre- And Post-Dobbs, Rona Kaufman

Law Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to include a fundamental right to familial privacy. The exact contours of that right were developed by the Court from 1923 until 2015. In 2022, with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court abruptly changed course and held that the right to terminate a pregnancy is no longer part of the right to privacy previously recognized by the Court. This essay seeks to place Dobbs in the context of the Court’s family privacy cases in an effort to understand the Court’s …

Preempting State Prevention: How Fda Regulation Ensures Access To Abortion Medication, Jared Shea

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion, Pregnancy Loss, & Subjective Fetal Personhood, Greer Donley, Jill Wieber Lens

Articles

Longstanding dogma dictates that recognizing pregnancy loss threatens abortion rights—acknowledging that miscarriage and stillbirth involve a loss, the theory goes, creates a slippery slope to fetal personhood. For decades, anti-abortion advocates have capitalized on this tension and weaponized the grief that can accompany pregnancy loss in their efforts to legislate personhood and end abortion rights. In response, abortion rights advocates have at times fought legislative efforts to support those experiencing pregnancy loss, and more recently, remained silent, alienating those who suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth.

This Article is the first to argue that this perceived tension can be reconciled through …

Equal Protection And Abortion: Brief Of Equal Protection Constitutional Law Scholars Serena Mayeri, Melissa Murray, And Reva Siegel As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents In Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Reva Siegel, Melissa Murray, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Equal Protection changes the questions we ask about abortion restrictions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an amicus brief filed on our behalf demonstrated that Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The brief continues a tradition of equality arguments that preceded Roe v. Wade and will continue, in new forms, after Dobbs. Our brief shows how the canonical equal protection cases United States v. Virginia and Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs extend to the regulation of pregnancy, hence provide an independent constitutional basis for abortion rights.

Under equal …

Second-Trimester Abortion Dangertalk, Greer Donley, Jill Wieber Lens

Articles

Abortion rights are more vulnerable now than they have been in decades. This Article focuses specifically on the most assailable subset of those rights: the right to a pre-viability, second-trimester abortion. Building on Carhart v. Gonzales, where the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a safe and effective second-trimester abortion procedure, states have passed new second-trimester abortion restrictions that rely heavily on the woman-protective rationale—the idea that the restrictions will benefit women. These newer second-trimester abortion restrictions include bans on the Dilation & Evacuation (D&E) procedure, bans on disability-selective abortions, and mandatory perinatal hospice and palliative care counseling …

If A Fetus Is A Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process, And Citizenship, Carliss N. Chatman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Article was originally published in The Washington Post on May 17, 2019. It has been edited and updated prior to its publication in the Washington and Lee Law Review.

Alabama has joined the growing number of states determined to overturn Roe v. Wade by banning abortion from conception forward. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act subjects a doctor who performs an abortion to as many as ninety-nine years in prison. The law has no exceptions for rape or incest. It redefines an “unborn child, child or person” as “[a] human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero …

Personhood: Law, Common Sense, And Humane Opportunities, Helen M. Alvaré

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

It is pointless to approach Professor Chatman’s argument on its own terms (to wit, “tak[ing] our laws seriously,” or equal application across myriad legal categories of “full personhood” rights) because these terms are neither seriously intended nor legally comprehensible. Instead, her essay is intended to create the impression that legally protecting unborn human lives against abortion opens up a Pandora’s box of legal complications so “ridiculous” and “far-fetched” that we should rather just leave things where they are under the federal Constitution post-Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This impression, in turn, is a tool to …

Under Ten Eyes, Anthony Michael Kreis

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Carliss Chatman’s If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process and Citizenship brilliantly captures the moment America is in, where abortion rights hang in the balance as state legislators, like those in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and elsewhere clamor to embrace fetal personhood. But, as Professor Chatman illustrates, legislators have expressed no interest in the full logical extent of this policy or the rights that should attach to a fetus if their measures ultimately become effective. The article incisively demonstrates how fetal personhood is singularly focused on ending abortion in the United States and is gaining …

Parental Autonomy Over Prenatal End-Of-Life Decisions, Greer Donley

Articles

When parents learn that their potential child has a life-limiting, often devastating, prenatal diagnosis, they are faced with the first (and perhaps, only) healthcare decisions they will make for their child. Many choose to terminate the pregnancy because they believe it is in their potential child’s best interest to avoid a short and painful life. I argue that these decisions should be protected in the same way that parental healthcare decisions are constitutionally protected after birth—including a parent’s refusal or withdrawal of life-saving treatment for an infant or child who is very sick or dying. Parental autonomy ensures that parents …

Grasping Fatherhood In Abortion And Adoption.Pdf, Malinda L. Seymore

Malinda L. Seymore

Roe V. Wade: The Case That Changed Democracy, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

The Interstate Commerce Of Abortion: A Constitutional Argument For The Federal Invalidation Of Restrictive State Abortion Laws, Kaiya Amelia Lyons

Kaiya Amelia Lyons

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutionality Of Ohio's House Bill 125: The Heartbeat Bill, Jessica L. Knopp

Akron Law Review

This Comment analyzes the constitutionality of Ohio’s controversial H.B. 125 under the Fourteenth and First Amendments to the United States Constitution in the context of current United States Supreme Court precedent. Part II outlines Ohio’s current abortion laws, describes Ohio’s role in creating anti-abortion legislation and case law, provides a context of other abortion bills occurring nationwide, and explains H.B. 125. Part III analyzes how H.B. 125 is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment in its current form, analyzes its constitutionality if the bill was modified to be a consent-only bill, and analyzes its unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause of the …

Abortion Rights, Michael C. Dorf

Michael C. Dorf

No abstract provided.

Abortion Rights, Michael C. Dorf

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jon O. Newman And The Abortion Decisions: A Remarkable First Year, Andrew D. Hurwitz

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Autonomy's Magic Wand: Abortion And Constitutional Interpretation, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Forgetting The Constitution, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Obscenity, The Law And Religion, Thomas A. Long

IUSTITIA

The long history of the relation between Western religion and secular law is both interesting and complex.' In what follows I shall discuss one current social issue which is illustrative of this relation,namely, the relatively recent legal-moral controversy over obscenity.