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Fourteenth Amendment Commons

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Public Law and Legal Theory

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Equal protection

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Full-Text Articles in Fourteenth Amendment

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 Sep 2021

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 …


What Gideon Did, Sara Mayeux Jan 2016

What Gideon Did, Sara Mayeux

All Faculty Scholarship

Many accounts of Gideon v. Wainwright’s legacy focus on what Gideon did not do—its doctrinal and practical limits. For constitutional theorists, Gideon imposed a preexisting national consensus upon a few “outlier” states, and therefore did not represent a dramatic doctrinal shift. For criminal procedure scholars, advocates, and journalists, Gideon has failed, in practice, to guarantee meaningful legal help for poor people charged with crimes.

Drawing on original historical research, this Article instead chronicles what Gideon did—the doctrinal and institutional changes it inspired between 1963 and the early 1970s. Gideon shifted the legal profession’s policy consensus on indigent defense away from …