Law Commons^™

Unburdening The Undue Burden Standard: Orienting Casey In Constitutional Jurisprudence, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

"Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt." With these words in the 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court ushered in a new era of abortion regulation. Speaking through a joint opinion authored by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, the Court indicated that from this point forth abortion regulations would be judged by an "undue burden" standard. According to this standard, an abortion regulation is unconstitutional if it "has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion" of a nonviable fetus.

The Justices who wrote …

Curriculum Vitae (Feminae): Biography And Early American Women Lawyers, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

In this review, Carol Sanger examines the recent surge of interest in the lives of early women lawyers. Using Jane Friedman's biography of Myra Bradwell, America's First Woman Lawyer, as a starting point, Professor Sanger explores the complexities for the feminist biographer of reconciling for herself and for her subject conflicting professional, political, and personal sensibilities. Professor Sanger concludes that to advance the project of women's history, feminist biographers ought not retreat to the comforts of commemorative Victorian biography, even for Victorian subjects, but should instead strive to present and accept early women subjects on their own complex terms.