Law Commons^™

A Miscarriage Of Justice: How Femtech Apps And Fog Data Evade Fourth Amendment Privacy Protections, Rachel Silver

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

After the fall of Roe v. Wade, states across the country have enacted extreme abortion bans. Anti-abortion states, emboldened by their new, unrestricted power to regulate women’s bodies, are only broadening the scope of abortion prosecutions. And modern technology provides law enforcement with unprecedented access to women’s most intimate information, including, for example, their menstrual cycle, weight, body temperature, sexual activity, mood, medications, and pregnancy details. Fourth Amendment law fails to protect this sensitive information stored on femtech apps from government searches. In a largely unregulated private market, femtech apps sell health and location data to third parties like Fog …

We Shouldn't Need Roe, Carliss Chatman

Scholarly Articles

In the face of state-by-state attacks on the right to choose, which result in regular challenges to Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, this essay asks whether Roe is needed at all. Decades of state law encroachments have caused Roe to fail to properly protect the right to choose. Building on prior works that challenge the premise of fetal personhood and highlighting the status of Roe-based rights after decades of challenges, this essay proposes an alternative solution to Roe. Federal legislative and executive efforts, including the Women’s Health Protection Act, are necessary to ensure the right …

Reproductive Privacy In The World: Critical Examination Of June Medical Services, L.L.C. V. Russo And Buck V. Bell, Kumiko Kitaoka

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Using insights from Professor Stephen A. Simon’s Universal Rights and the Constitution, this Article argues that national courts should continue to assume an active role in the protection of privacy rights by giving due consideration to the nature of the privacy right in combination with the merits of the universal right theory. This Article then demonstrates that both foreign national courts and domestic state courts have recognized the right to procreate and key aspects of the right to abortion as fundamental rights.

Part II introduces the universal right theory, explaining why the theory is particularly relevant to the protection …

The Haunting Of Her House: How Virginia Law Punishes Women Who Become Mothers Through Rape, Jordan S. Miceli

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

If a rape victim becomes pregnant following the attack, she has three options: abort the pregnancy, place the child for adoption, or keep and raise the child. However, by requiring proof of conviction of rape to terminate the parental rights of the man who fathered that child through his rape, the Commonwealth of Virginia imposes a substantial burden on a victim weighing those options. To obtain a conviction under the current scheme, a victim, through her local prosecutor, has to prove to a jury that the accused committed the rape beyond a reasonable doubt. The Commonwealth requires proof of conviction …

Civil Disobedience In The Face Of Texas’S Abortion Ban, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett

Scholarly Articles

This Article uses Texas’s abortion ban to demonstrate why civil disobedience is the best strategy against such private-enforcement schemes. It proceeds in three parts. Part I demonstrates that Texas’s private enforcement scheme in fact directly implicates state court officials and potentially state police forces. It then explains why bringing about the involvement of state courts and police through civil disobedience will put SB8 on constitutionally weaker ground. Part II details potential arguments against civil disobedience as a means of challenging private enforcement schemes. This Part also explains why relying on the federal government to challenge such laws will be insufficient. …

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 …

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 …

Emergency Contraceptives Or "Abortion-Inducing" Drugs? Empowering Women To Make Informed Decisions, Ryan M. Hrobak, Robin Fretwell Wilson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

If The Purpose Fits: The Two Functions Of Casey'S Purpose Inquiry, Priscilla J. Smith

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Previability Abortion And The Pain Of The Unborn, Teresa S. Collett

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Barriers To The Protection Of Viable Fetuses, Randy Beck

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Roe'S Effects On Family Law, Lynne Marie Kohm

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innocent Burdens, James Edwin Mahon

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Strive For Balance In A Roe Symposium?, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Medical Assumption At The Foundation Of Roe V. Wade And Its Implications For Women's Health, Clarke Forsythe

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Re-Reading Roe V. Wade, Richard S. Myers

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion Exceptionalism And Undue Burden Preemption, Caitlin E. Borgmann

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Roe, Casey, And Sex-Selection Abortion Bans, Thomas J. Molony

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Abortion Distortions, Caroline Mala Corbin

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virginia's Targeted Regulations Of Abortion Providers: The Attempt To Regulation Abortion Out Of Existence, Katharine Greenier, Rebecca Glenberg

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address: Untying The Moral Knot Of Abortion, Caitlin E. Borgmann

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Consequences Of Abortion Restrictions For Women's Healthcare, Maya Manian

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.