Brief for 885 Law Professors in Support of Maintaining Adherence to the Roe Decision

1989 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 197-203
Author(s):  
Frank I. Michelman ◽  
Norman Redlich ◽  
Stephen R. Neuwirth ◽  
Denise Carty-Bennia

The mission of this brief was not only to oppose the outright over-ruling of Roe v. Wade. It was further to resist any weakening of the protective doctrine surrounding Roe's central holding that would allow states to eviscerate the right that Roe recognized. Because the brief was written on behalf of nearly 900 law professors, we consulted widely among our constituency, drawing heavily on the scholarship developed since Roe. We relied on extensive work by our colleagues supporting Roe's holding, reasoning and legitimate place in constitutional jurisprudence.

1989 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Benjamin Linton

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court held that “[the] right of privacy … founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty … is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The Court acknowledged that “[t]he Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.” Nevertheless, the Court held that a “right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution.” However, “only personal rights that can be deemed ‘fundamental’ or ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ … are included in this guarantee of personal privacy.”


2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Persano

Negli Stati Uniti il dibattito sull’aborto è sempre un tema molto caldo. Questo saggio, diviso in due parti (la prima parte è stata pubblicata sul precedente numero della rivista) prova a ripercorrere l’evoluzione della giurisprudenza costituzionale statunitense in materia d’aborto, evidenziando i cambiamenti che ciascuna decisione ha apportato al quadro giuridico precedente. In questa seconda parte, la dissertazione sui singoli casi giurisprudenziali decisi dalla Suprema Corte prosegue con il caso Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Esso è stato una vera occasione mancata nella storia dell’aborto negli Stati Uniti, perchè venne sfiorata la overrule di Roe v. Wade. Ciononostante, venne sostanzialmente confermato l’impianto delle decisioni precedenti, in considerazione del fatto che una decisione contraria all’aborto avrebbe spiazzato un popolo che per decenni aveva organizzato la propria vita in funzione anche della possibilità di abortire. Con questa decisione si distinse la gravidanza in due periodi: quello della pre-viabilità, in cui la donna era completamente libera di abortire in accordo col medico; quello della post-viabilità, in cui gli Stati avrebbero potuto legiferare, pur dovendo consentire l’aborto nel caso di pericolo per la vita o la salute della madre. Inoltre il diritto d’aborto venne radicato nella libertà riconosciuta nel XIV Emendamento della Costituzione. Nel successivo caso Stenberg v. Carhart fu oggetto di giudizio l’aborto a nascita parziale: una legge del Nebraska aveva bandito questa pratica, ma la legge fu annullata dalla Corte Suprema, nonostante il duro dissenso di ben quattro giudici, fra cui Anthony Kennedy. Successivamente a questa decisione, il Congresso prese l’iniziativa di emanare il Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. Questa legge fu impugnata in via d’azione davanti alla Corte Suprema e ne scaturì la sentenza Gonzalez v. Carhart. In questa decisione la Corte fece un passo indietro rispetto a Stenberg, affermò la legittimità del bando, sostenne che l’aborto a nascita parziale non è mai necessario per tutelare la vita della donna e che Stenberg era fondato su convinzioni erronee sul punto. Il saggio si conclude con delle interessanti considerazioni in merito ai possibili sviluppi futuri circa il tema dell’aborto negli Stati Uniti, auspica la “liberalizzazione del diritto alla vita” ed avanza una originale proposta, valida per tutti i Paesi in cui l’aborto è legalizzato. ---------- Abortion debate is always a hot subject in the United States. This essay, divided into two parts (the first part has been published on the previous issue of this review) tries to go along the development of U.S. constitutional caselaw about abortion, pointing out the change that each judgement caused to the previous law framework. In this second part, the dissertation about U.S. Supreme Court single case-law goes on by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It was a real missed occasion in the abortion affair in the United States, because it was on the verge of overruling Roe v. Wade. However, the framework of the previous cases was substantially confirmed, considering that a decision against abortion would place out people who for a long time organized their own life in connection to the right of abortion. By this judgement, pregnancy was divided into two periods: pre-viability, when woman was completely free to have an abortion in agreement with her doctor; post-viability, when States could restrict abortion, except for woman life or health risks. Moreover, abortion right was founded on liberty, acknowledged by XIV Amendement. In the following case Gonzalez v. Carhart, partial-birth abortion was judged: a statute of Nebraska banned this activity, but it was stroked down by Supreme Court, despite of the dissenting opinion of four judges (Anthony Kennedy was one of them). After this judgement, the Congress wanted to issue Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. This statute was pre-enforcement challenged to the Supreme Court, and Gonzalez v. Carhart was poured. In this judgment, the Court drew back Stenberg, it stated the ban was legitimate, partial-birth abortion never is necessary to safeguard woman health, and Stenberg was founded on wrong beliefs on this matter. This essay concludes with interesting considerations about possible developments about abortion affair in the United States, wishes “liberty of right to life” and proposes a solution for all the countries where abortion is legal.


ICL Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Braun

Abstract Many states are grappling with the regulation of assistance in suicide and ending the life of another upon their request. Initially punishable in most countries, a growing number of jurisdictions have now introduced permissive frameworks decriminalising, to varying degrees, rendering assistance in dying. Other countries, however, have proceeded with the criminal prohibition and several courts have upheld the lawfulness of the respective criminal laws during human rights and constitutional challenges. Yet, the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015, the German Federal Constitutional Court in February 2020 and the Austrian Constitutional Court in December 2020 have respectively declared unconstitutional and void national criminal laws prohibiting rendering assistance in dying. This article first outlines the criminal law framework relating to assisted dying in Canada, Germany and Austria. It subsequently analyses the judgments before pondering their impact on the legal landscape in the three countries. The article concludes that while the Canadian Supreme Court decision appears to have had a significant impact on the introduction of subsequent legislation in Canada, the effects of the Constitutional Courts’ judgments seem much more subdued in Germany and are yet to unfold in Austria.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-7
Author(s):  
Christopher Jenks

Opponents of abortion sometimes argue that a fetus "wants" to grow up into a real person. But every egg and sperm also "want" to become a person in this sense. And if that is the case, how can one defend either contraception or celibacy, both of which deny life to millions of eggs and sperms that "want" to become people, and both of which also involve repression of "natural" impulses? The question of whether abortion is morally wrong depends on when we become "human." Unfortunately, this does not happen all at once, as in medieval fantasies of the soul's entering the body. It happens bit by bit. We must therefore make some arbitrary decision about when to confer the "right to life." Because nature offers no clear guidance about where this line should be drawn, the most humane solution is to draw it so as to minimize human suffering. I doubt, however, that opponents of abortion will accept this approach, for once you accept it, you will almost inevitably be led to precisely the same "liberal" conclusion the Supreme Court reached five years ago in Roe v. Wade.


Author(s):  
Luis Javier MIERES MIERES

LABURPENA: Lan-harremanen arloan funtsezkoa den intimitatearen eskubidea babesteak jurisprudentzia konstituzional zabala eta aberatsa eragin du. Intimitate-eskubideak babesten duen eremuaren baitan, intimitatearen zentzu sendoa (edo gizarteak onartzen duena) eta zentzu ahula dago (intimitate subjektiboa). Biak ala biak proiektatzen dira lan-prestazioan, enpresen zaintza-eta kontrol-ahalmenak mugatuz, eta proportzionaltasunaren printzipioa betearaziz. EKaren 18.1 artikuluak ez du babesten bizitza pribatuaren askatasuna esan ahal zaiona, baina jurisprudentzia konstituzionalak hainbat teknikaren bidez babesten ditu langileen nortasunaren garapen librearen zenbait alderdi, zuzenean bizitza pribatuarekin lotuak. RESUMEN: La protección del derecho fundamental a la intimidad en el ámbito de las relaciones laborales ha dado lugar a una amplia y rica jurisprudencia constitucional. Dentro del ámbito protegido por el derecho a la intimidad cabe distinguir entre intimidad en sentido fuerte (o intimidad socialmente reconocida) y en sentido débil (intimidad subjetivamente reservada). Ambas manifestaciones del derecho se proyectan sobre el desarrollo de la prestación laboral imponiendo límites a los poderes empresariales de vigilancia y control, cuyo ejercicio debe ajustarse al principio de proporcional. Aunque el artículo 18.1 CE no protege lo que puede denominarse la libertad de la vida privada, la jurisprudencia constitucional ha articulado distintas técnicas a fin de amparar ciertas manifestaciones del libre desarrollo de la personalidad de los trabajadores directamente vinculadas con la vida privada. ABSTRACT: The protection of the fundamental right to privacy in the area of the work relations has caused a rich and wide-ranging constitutional jurisprudence. In the protected area for the right to privacy, it can be distinguished among a hard privacy (or socially recognized privacy) and a weak privacy (privacy subjectively reserved). Both manifestations of the right to privacy are projected on the workplace and they limit the entrepreneurial powers of surveillance and control, the exercise of which it has to fit the principle of proportionality. Although article 18.1 CE does not protect what can be denominated the freedom of the private life, the constitutional jurisprudence has articulated different techniques in order to protect certain manifestations of the free development of the personality of theworkers directly linked to the private life.


2021 ◽  
pp. 150-172
Author(s):  
Lasse Schuldt ◽  
Pudit Ovattananavakhun

This article critically discusses the Thai criminal law applicable to online falsehoods, namely Section 14 para. 1(1) and (2) of the Act on Computer-Related Offences. Linking developments in Thailand to global and Southeast Asian fake news discourses, the article’s main part sheds light on several interpretational and constitutional complexities. Conflicting concepts of falsity and an uncertain ambit of protected interests are found to persist despite legislative amendments. As the right to freedom of expression in principle also protects false factual statements, recent constitutional jurisprudence on the principle of proportionality is applied to evaluate the prescribed level of criminal punishment. The article provides an in-depth analysis that contributes to the evolving scholarship on the challenges of regulatory responses to fake news.


2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivka Weill

This is yet another manuscript by one of the most interesting and prolific American constitutional law professors that the Critical Legal Studies movement has produced. Mark Tushnet has written extensively and influentially in the fields of both American and comparative constitutional law. He is a known expert on twentieth century American legal history, bringing this expertise to bear in writing his ambitious and most recent book, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century.This review of an early draft of the book will consist of three parts. The first portrays Tushnet's descriptive enterprise in a nutshell. The second discusses the historical dimensions of Tushnet's work. The last evaluates its contribution to legal theory along the lines suggested by Alon Harel.


Author(s):  
José Mateos Martínez

RESUMEN: El presente artículo analiza el reforzamiento de la libertad de expresión que se produce cuando ésta es ejercida en conexión con el derecho de defensa, y se centra en un concreto supuesto que ha sido recientemente examinado por el Tribunal Constitucional: el ejercicio del derecho de defensa en primera persona por un funcionario que es objeto de un expediente disciplinario. A la vez que estudiamos la solución dada por el TC al citado caso, reflexionamos sobre los efectos de la misma más allá del caso específico que resuelve, planteando la posibilidad de su extrapolación a la generalidad de supuestos donde el ciudadano ejerce su derecho de defensa en primera persona y sin asistencia letrada. ABSTRACT: The present article analyzes the reinforcement of the freedom of expression that takes place when this one is exercised in connection by the right of defense, and centres on a concrete supposition that has been recently examined by the Constitutional Court: the exercise of the right of defense in the first person for a civil servant who is an object of a disciplinary process. Simultaneously that we study the solution given by the Constitutional Court to the mentioned case, we think about the effects of the same one beyond the specific case that resolves, raising the possibility of its extrapolation to the generality of suppositions where the citizen exercises his right of defense in the first person and without legal aid service.PALABRAS CLAVE: libertad de expresión, derecho de defensa, funcionario público, autotutela, expediente disciplinario.KEYWORDS: freedom of expression, right of defense, civil servant, autoguardianship, disciplinary process.


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