Law Commons^™

A Friendly Amendment, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Heather Gerken comes to praise Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor. 1 I come to praise Gerken’s valiant effort to recast the Windsor opinion along more convincing lines.2 Gerken does not propose a wholesale substitute for Justice Kennedy’s analysis. She suggests a shift in emphasis that lends Kennedy’s explanation for condemning DOMA a surprising jurisprudential significance. Where some us have seen yet another lamentable paean to the sovereignty of the states, Gerken detects the faint hint of the “nationalist” school of federalism that she and others have nurtured in recent years.3 Gerken does not …

Trafficked? Aids, Criminal Law And The Politics Of Measurement, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Since early in the HIV epidemic, epidemiologists identified individuals who transact sex as a high-risk group for contracting HIV. Where the issue of transacting sex has been framed as sex work, harm-reduction advocates and scholars call for decriminalization as a primary legal solution to address HIV. Where the issue is defined as trafficking, advocates known as abolitionists argue instead for the criminalization of the purchase of sex.

Global health governance institutions are porous to these competing ideas and ideologies. This article first historicizes the contestation between harm-reduction and abolition in global governance on health. The paper then turns to a …

Picturing Moral Arguments In A Fraught Legal Arena: Fetuses, Photographic Phantoms And Ultrasounds, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This article investigates the movement in the U.S. that seeks to regulate the abortion decision by mandating ultrasounds prior to the procedure. The article argues that this reform effort is misguided not only because it is ineffective, but also because ultrasounds provide misleading information and are part of shaming practices that degrade the dignity of women. Both of these problems violate the main tenets of Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). Central to the article’s argument and novelty is that the pro-ultrasound movement’s mistake is both legal and cultural. It misunderstands the nature of visual technology by failing …