{"id":605,"date":"2012-01-19T09:23:28","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T14:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=605"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:28:20","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:28:20","slug":"roe-and-its-progeny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2012\/01\/roe-and-its-progeny\/","title":{"rendered":"My critique of Roe v. Wade and its progeny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Sunday, January 22, is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade<\/em> (1973). Even though many citizens reject the opinion, not many know why it is so flawed. In chapter 2 of my\"\"<\/a> 2007 book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice<\/a><\/em> (Cambridge University Press)<\/a>, I offer a detailed analysis of Roe<\/em> and some subsequent Supreme Court opinions. An earlier version of that chapter was published in 2006 (1.1, pp. 37-72) in the inaugural issue of the\u00a0Liberty University Law Review <\/em>under the title \u201cThe Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade<\/em>, and Abortion Law.<\/a>\u201d Here\u2019s how it begins:<\/p>\n

It is no exaggeration to say that no U.S. Supreme Court opinion has been\u00a0more misunderstood and has had its arguments more misrepresented in the\u00a0public square than Roe v. Wade<\/em> (1973).1 There seems to be a widespread\u00a0perception that Roe<\/em> was a moderate opinion that does not support abortion on\u00a0demand, i.e., unrestricted abortion for all nine months for virtually any reason.\u00a0Even a philosopher of such erudity as Mortimer Adler did not seem to fully\u00a0understand the legal implications of Roe<\/em>: \u201cMr. Justice Blackmun\u2019s decision in\u00a0the case of Roe v. Wade<\/em> invokes the right of privacy, which is nothing but the\u00a0freedom of an adult woman to do as she pleases with her own body in the first\u00a0trimester of pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order to fully grasp the reasoning of Roe<\/em>, its paucity as a piece of\u00a0constitutional jurisprudence, and the current state of abortion law, this article\u00a0looks at three different but interrelated topics: (1) what the Court actually\u00a0concluded in Roe<\/em>; (2) the Court\u2019s reasoning in Roe<\/em>; and (3) how subsequent\u00a0Court opinions, including Casey v. Planned Parenthood<\/em>, have shaped the\u00a0jurisprudence of abortion law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read, and download, the whole thing here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, January 22, is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973). Even though many citizens reject the opinion, not many know why it is so flawed. In chapter 2 of my 2007 book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press), I offer a detailed analysis of Roe and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,41,81,109,114],"tags":[22159,22247,22275],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-culture-of-death","category-law","category-politics","category-prolife","tag-abortion","tag-prolife","tag-roe-v-wade"],"yoast_head":"\nMy critique of Roe v. Wade and its progeny<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sunday, January 22, is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973). Even though many citizens reject the opinion, not many know why it is so flawed. In\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2012\/01\/roe-and-its-progeny\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My critique of Roe v. Wade and its progeny\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sunday, January 22, is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973). Even though many citizens reject the opinion, not many know why it is so flawed. 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