Law Commons^™

Charging Abortion, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

As long as Roe v. Wade remained good law, prosecutors could largely avoid the question of abortion. The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has now placed prosecutors at the forefront of the abortion wars. Some chief prosecutors in antiabortion states have pledged to not enforce antiabortion laws, whereas others are targeting even out-of-state providers. This post-Dobbs reality, wherein the ability to obtain an abortion depends not only on the politics of one’s state but also the policies of one’s local district attorney, has received minimal scrutiny from legal scholars.

Prosecutors have broad charging discretion, …

Feminist Legal Theory And Praxis After Dobbs: Science, Politics, And Expertise, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Fifty years ago, in Roe v. Wade, Justice Blackmun set into motion the idea that abortion should be a decision between a woman and her doctor.' That idea traveled from the Supreme Court decision to popular discourse; with it, came the notion that when it comes to reproduction, medical experts are a key part of women's liberation. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the court ignored the role of experts and threw the question of who should decide when and how a person has an abortion to the people. In my essay for this symposium issue dedicated to feminist …

The Impact Of Post-Dobbs Abortion Bans On Prenatal Tort Claims, Aviva K. Diamond

Michigan Law Review

In June 2022, the Supreme Court revoked Americans’ fundamental right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. However, the Court said nothing about how its decision would impact tort claims related to reproductive care. Many states have since adopted near-total or early-gestational- age abortion bans, which has not only diminished access to reproductive care, but has also incidentally impaired the ability of plaintiffs to bring long-recognized prenatal tort claims. Prenatal tort claims—wrongful pregnancy, birth, and life—allow victims to recover when a medical professional negligently performs reproductive or prenatal care. This Note identifies the impact that post-Dobbs …

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

Vanderbilt Law Review

Long-standing dogma dictates that recognizing pregnancy loss threatens abortion rights-—acknowledging that miscarriage and stillbirthinvolve the loss of something valuable, the theory goes, creates a slippery slope to fetal personhood. For decades, antiabortion advocates have capitalized on this tension and weaponized the grief that can accompany pregnancy loss in their efforts to legislate fetal 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 argues that this perceived tension can be reconciled through the …

Statement From Columbia Law School’S Center For Gender And Sexuality Law On The Supreme Court Decision Overruling The Constitutional Right To Abortion, Center For Gender And Sexuality Law

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization signals a major break with at least three generations of constitutional law. This opinion eliminates not only constitutional protections for abortion, but well-settled legal principles on which fundamental rights have rested for over 60 years. “Within a 24-hour period the Supreme Court ruled on the one hand that abortion rights are a local issue to be decided by each state independently, while on the other, states are barred from making local decisions about how to regulate guns,” said Katherine Franke, James L. Dohr Professor of Law and Director of …

Re-Thinking Strategy After Roe, David S. Cohen, Greer Donley, Rachel Rebouché

Articles

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturns nearly fifty years of precedent and radically changes abortion law, throwing both sides of the debate into uncharted territory. This essay, published in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, offers some initial thoughts about what the changed legal landscape means for abortion rights legal advocacy. Our focus in recent writings has been to identify concrete measures federal and state actors can take to secure abortion access after Dobbs. Here, we investigate a more overarching concern: what fundamental values and strategies should govern the abortion rights movement going …

Abortion Rights In The Supreme Court: A Tale Of Three Wedges, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

No abstract provided.

Redefining Lgbtq And Abortion Rights In Latin America: A Transnational Toolkit, Alyssa Julian

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Throughout Latin America, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) and abortion rights movements have progressed at divergent strengths and speeds, with significant variation among countries. The region is home to some of the most restrictive and discriminatory laws when it comes to these contentious issues. This Note explores some of the reasons behind the variation in LGBTQ and abortion rights throughout the region.

This Note traces the economic and political history of Latin America to illustrate the climate in which these social movements are operating. Further, this Note offers a brief snapshot of recent global developments in LGBTQ …

Abortion In A Post-Truth Moment: A Response To Erwin Chemerinsky And Michele Goodwin, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

In Abortion: A Woman’s Private Choice, Erwin Chemerinsky and Michele Goodwin respond to the crisis of abortion rights in our current political moment. While preserving the right to abortion is an ongoing challenge for reproductive-justice advocates and lawyers, the arrival of a new Republican administration led by Donald Trump and a Republican majority in the House and Senate heightens these concerns. In the face of ongoing and new threats to abortion access, Chemerinsky and Goodwin argue that abortion should be treated as a woman’s private choice. I agree with Chemerinsky and Goodwin, as all supporters of abortion rights should. …

Informed Decision Making On Abortion: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Clinics, And The First Amendment, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Shifting laws and regulations increasingly displace the centrality of women's health concerns in the provision of abortion services. This is exemplified by the growing presence of deceptive Crisis Pregnancy Centers alongside new informed consent laws designed to dissuade women from seeking abortions. Litigation on informed consent is further complicated in the clinical context due to the increased mobilization of facts - such as the gestational age or sonogram of the fetus - delivered with the intent to dissuade women from accessing abortion. In other words, factual information utilized for ideological purpose. To preserve a woman's autonomy and decision-making capacity, there …

Upholding A 40-Year-Old Promise: Why The Texas Sonogram Act Is Unlawful According To Planned Parenthood V. Casey, Vicki Toscano, Elizabeth Reiter

Pace Law Review

This Article begins with a brief review in Part II of the three crucial Supreme Court cases on abortion rights: Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and Gonzalez v. Carhart. Based on these cases, Part III formulates a constitutional test that courts should be using to determine whether an abortion regulation is constitutional that includes all of the factors identified by the Supreme Court as part of the “undue burden” analysis, factors that have been overlooked by many courts. Finally, Part IV applies this constitutional test to the Texas Sonogram Act, concluding that the act is …

From Sex For Pleasure To Sex For Parenthood: How The Law Manufactures Mothers, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

As soon as sperm enter a woman, so do law and politics, or so the decades-long disputes surrounding abortion suggest. Now, however, renewed debates surrounding contraceptives show legal and political interference with women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy may actually precede the sperm. This Article argues that, increasingly, women even thinking about having sex are defined socially and legally as “mothers.” Via this broad definition of who is a “mother,” the State extends its reach into women’s decision-making throughout their reproductive lifetime.

This Article argues that the State simultaneously devalues women’s choices to have sex for pleasure, which this Article calls …

Beyond Privacy: A Population Approach To Reproductive Rights, Wendy E. Parmet

Wendy E. Parmet

In recent years, public health arguments have gained new prominence in debates over abortion and access to reproductive health services. Opponents of reproductive rights in particular have used the language of public health, and the deference that public health law generally accords to state health regulations, to justify a variety of stringent regulations of reproductive health services. This Chapter considers the impact of this development on reproductive rights. It begins by exploring how each side in the reproductive rights debate has employed public health arguments and the impact of those arguments on judicial decisions, especially the Supreme Court’s decision in …

Roe V. Wade Inverted: How The Supreme Court Might Have Privileged Fetal Rights Over Reproductive Freedoms, Jack Wade Nowlin

Mercer Law Review

In Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court privileged reproductive freedoms over fetal rights, but what if the Court had done the reverse in resolving the question of abortion under the Constitution- elevating fetal rights over reproductive freedoms? How might the Supreme Court have justified such a holding? What arguments, doctrines, and cases would the Court have invoked? What might concurring and dissenting opinions have said in response? A full analysis of these questions requires an exploration of a range of issues: the basis of constitutional personhood, the suspect nature of birth-status classifications, the fundamentality of access to …

Expanding The Feminist Imagination: An Analysis Of Reproductive Right, Edith L. Pacillo

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Abortion Rights In America, Joan R. Bullock

Journal Publications

The purpose of this Article is to raise the question of whether abortion is an answer to the numerous inequalities that confront many women when there is an unwanted pregnancy, or whether abortion exacerbates the inequalities by encouraging the subordination of women to men. There is the additional question of whether the judicial system is the appropriate forum for deciding the abortion issue-an issue that invokes high emotions and one that is fraught with deeply held and divergent moral convictions. It is my opinion that abortion has provided women with only an illusion of choice rather than meaningful choice because …

Planned Parenthood Of Southeastern Pennsylvania V. Casey: Adopting The Unduly Burdensome Standard, Sara L. Doyle

Mercer Law Review

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the central holding in Roe v. Wade, firmly establishing that a woman has a fundamental liberty right to choose to have an abortion guaranteed to her under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Casey is a, plurality opinion coupled with a strong dissent.

This Casenote begins with a summary of the pertinent facts leading up to the initial action. Next, the Casenote examines the Court's holding in Casey and concludes with analysis of the Supreme Court opinion.

Constitutionalizing The 'Right To Die', Thomas Wm. Mayo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Following the Supreme Court’s unprecedented acceptance of three abortion cases, and for the first time a case involving the withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment in the upcoming 1989 Term, this article addresses the so-called right to die. Specifically, as in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, whether the federal constitutional right of privacy extends to decisions, made on behalf of permanently unconscious patients, to have life-sustaining medical treatment discontinued and, if so, whether a state’s interest in the sanctity of life can override the patient’s privacy right? This article argues that on doctrinal as well as policy grounds, no …