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Constitutional Law

Civil Rights and Discrimination

University of Pittsburgh School of Law

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The Promise Of Telehealth For Abortion, Greer Donley, Rachel Rebouché Jan 2023

The Promise Of Telehealth For Abortion, Greer Donley, Rachel Rebouché

Book Chapters

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed a transformation of abortion care. For most of the last half century, abortion was provided in clinics outside of the traditional healthcare setting. Though a medication regimen was approved in 2000 that would terminate a pregnancy without a surgical procedure, the Food & Drug Administration required, among other things, that the drug be dispensed in person. This requirement dramatically limited the medication’s promise to revolutionize abortion because it subjected medication abortion to the same physical barriers of procedural care.

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, that changed. The pandemic’s early days exposed how the …


Medication Abortion Exceptionalism, Greer Donley Jan 2022

Medication Abortion Exceptionalism, Greer Donley

Articles

Restrictive state abortion laws garner a large amount of attention in the national conversation and legal scholarship, but less known is a federal abortion policy that significantly curtails access to early abortion in all fifty states. The policy limits the distribution of mifepristone, the only drug approved to terminate a pregnancy so long as it is within the first ten weeks. Unlike most drugs, which can be prescribed by licensed healthcare providers and picked up at most pharmacies, the Food and Drug Administration only allows certified providers to prescribe mifepristone, and only allows those providers to distribute the drug to …


The Legal And Medical Necessity Of Abortion Care Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic, Greer Donley, Beatrice Chen, Sonya Borrero Jan 2020

The Legal And Medical Necessity Of Abortion Care Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic, Greer Donley, Beatrice Chen, Sonya Borrero

Articles

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, states have ordered the cessation of non-essential healthcare. Unfortunately, many conservative states have sought to capitalize on those orders to halt abortion care. In this short paper, we argue that abortion should not fall under any state’s non-essential healthcare order. Major medical organizations recognize that abortion is essential healthcare that must be provided even in a pandemic, and the law recognizes abortion as a time-sensitive constitutional right. Finally, we examine the constitutional arguments as to why enforcing these orders against abortion providers should not stand constitutional scrutiny. We conclude that no public health purpose …


Uncovering Juror Racial Bias, Christian Sundquist Jan 2019

Uncovering Juror Racial Bias, Christian Sundquist

Articles

The presence of bias in the courtroom has the potential to undermine public faith in the adversarial process, distort trial outcomes, and obfuscate the search for justice. In Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments required post-verdict judicial inquiry in criminal cases where racial bias clearly served as a “significant motivating factor” in juror decision-making. Courts will nonetheless likely struggle in interpreting what constitutes a "clear statement of racial bias" and whether such bias constituted a "significant motivating factor" in a juror's verdict. This Article will examine how …


On The Contemporary Meaning Of Korematsu: 'Liberty Lies In The Hearts Of Men And Women', David A. Harris Jan 2011

On The Contemporary Meaning Of Korematsu: 'Liberty Lies In The Hearts Of Men And Women', David A. Harris

Articles

In just a few years, seven decades will have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Korematsu v. U.S., one of the most reviled of all of the Court’s cases. Despised or not, however, similarities between the World War II era and our own have people looking at Korematsu in a new light. When the Court decided Korematsu in 1944, we were at war with the Japanese empire, and with this came considerable suspicion of anyone who shared the ethnicity of our foreign enemies. Since 2001, we have faced another external threat – from the al Queda terrorists – …