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From Choice To Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights, Robin West Nov 2009

From Choice To Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Essay argues that the right to abortion constitutionalized in Roe v. Wade is by some measure at odds with a capacious understanding of the demands of reproductive justice. No matter its rationale, the constitutional right to abortion is fundamentally a negative right that rhetorically keeps the state out of the domain of family life. As such, the decision privatizes not only the abortion decision, but also parenting, by rendering the decision to carry a pregnancy to term a choice. It thereby legitimates a minimalist state response to the problems of pregnant women who carry their pregnancies to term and …


The Unbearable Lightness Of Marriage In The Abortion Decisions Of The Supreme Court: Altered States In Constitutional Law, William W. Van Alstyne Oct 2009

The Unbearable Lightness Of Marriage In The Abortion Decisions Of The Supreme Court: Altered States In Constitutional Law, William W. Van Alstyne

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.


The Courts Under President Obama, Scott A. Moss Jan 2009

The Courts Under President Obama, Scott A. Moss

Publications

No abstract provided.


Rights, Remedies And Facial Challenges, Maya Manian Jan 2009

Rights, Remedies And Facial Challenges, Maya Manian

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In a few short years, the Roberts Court has managed to severely restrict the use of facial challenges across substantive areas of constitutional law. Caitlin Borgmann's article, Holding Legislatures Constitutionally Accountable Through Facial Challenges, provides a compelling analysis of the vexing distinction between as applied and facial challenges in constitutional litigation and the impact that limiting facial challenges has on constitutional rights. Borgmann argues that facial challenges are necessary to keep legislatures in check, particularly when legislatures "deliberately or recklessly infringe individual rights" of those who lack political power. Facial challenges are needed in this context not only to protect …


Gonzales, Casey And The Viability Rule, Randy Beck Jan 2009

Gonzales, Casey And The Viability Rule, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

Gonzales v. Carhart upheld a federal ban on intact D&E abortions. The dissenters in Gonzales accused the majority of ignoring the rule that a state may only prohibit abortion of a viable fetus, one capable of life outside the womb. The continuing discord over the viability rule highlights an issue that remains unsettled 34 years after Roe: Why may a state protect the life of a fetus after it reaches viability, but not before? Professor John Hart Ely long ago noted Roe's failure to justify the viability rule, observing that the Court's defense seems to mistake a definition for a …


How Planned Parenthood V. Casey (Pretty Much) Settled The Abortion Wars, Neal Devins Jan 2009

How Planned Parenthood V. Casey (Pretty Much) Settled The Abortion Wars, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

More than twenty-one years after Robert Bork's failed Supreme Court nomination and seventeen years after Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the rhetoric of abortion politics remains unchanged. Pro-choice interests, for example, argue that states are poised to outlaw abortion and that Roe v. Wade is vulnerable to overruling. In this Essay, I will debunk those claims. First, I will explain how Casey's approval of limited abortion rights reflected an emerging national consensus in 1992. Second, I will explain why the Supreme Court is unlikely to risk political backlash by formally modifying Casey- either by restoring the trimester test …


The Unbearable Lightness Of Marriage In The Abortion Decisions Of The Supreme Court: Altered States In Constitutional Law, William W. Van Alstyne Jan 2009

The Unbearable Lightness Of Marriage In The Abortion Decisions Of The Supreme Court: Altered States In Constitutional Law, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A Radically Immodest Judicial Modesty: The End Of Facial Challenges To Abortion Regulations And The Future Of The Health Exception In The Roberts Era, B. Jessie Hill Jan 2009

A Radically Immodest Judicial Modesty: The End Of Facial Challenges To Abortion Regulations And The Future Of The Health Exception In The Roberts Era, B. Jessie Hill

Faculty Publications

If there is anything as strongly associated in the public mind with Chief Justice John Roberts as his black robe and judicial temperament, it is surely his claim to judicial modesty. And indeed, some commentators have suggested that there are signs of newfound judicial restraint in the Roberts Court. One example of this purported restraint is the Roberts Court’s expressed preference for narrower, as-applied decisionmaking in constitutional cases, as opposed to striking down statutes on their face. The Roberts Court has turned away facial challenges or otherwise expressed a preference for making decisions on an as-applied basis in a number …


Rights, Remedies And Facial Challenges, Maya Manian Dec 2008

Rights, Remedies And Facial Challenges, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

This brief comment extends upon a key point raised by Caitlin Borgmann’s article, Holding Legislatures Constitutionally Accountable Through Facial Challenges, which argues in part that the Roberts Court takes an outcome-driven approach to facial challenges. Building on Borgmann’s analysis, this comment further suggests that the Court not only manipulates the law in an outcome determinative manner, but also exploits the rules regarding the use of as-applied and facial challenges as a means to rewrite substantive law without having to openly overrule prior precedent. This comment focuses on Gonzales v. Carhart as an illustration of the Roberts Courts’ manipulation of procedural …


The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent And Abortion Decision-Making, Maya Manian Dec 2008

The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent And Abortion Decision-Making, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a type of second-trimester abortion that many physicians believe is safer for their patients. Carhart presented a watershed moment in abortion law, because it marks the Supreme Court’s first use of the anti-abortion movement’s “woman-protective” rationale to uphold a ban on abortion and the first time since Roe v. Wade that the Court denied women a health exception to an abortion restriction. The woman-protective rationale asserts that banning abortion promotes women’s mental health. According to Carhart, the State should make the final decisions about pregnant women’s healthcare, because …