Politico has a story about Marco Rubio’s attempted sponsorship of federal anti-abortion legislation. Apparently the bill is being delayed, however, by a dispute about federal power to regulate abortion: Rubio and 27 other Republican senators signed onto a bill from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in 2011 that would require lawmakers to point to which piece […]
Archive | Abortion
Roe‘s Effect on Abortion Rates
The latest installment of the Washington Post‘s “Five Myths” series takes on abortion. Number three among the “Five Myths about Abortion” identified by author Rickie Solinger is “Roe led to a huge increase in the number of abortions.” Here is Solinger’s explanation for why this is a “myth”: According to the Guttmacher Institute, at least […]
The Kermit Gosnell Multiple Murder Trial
Conor Friedersdorf and Megan McArdle write about this at The Atlantic and The Daily Beast, respectively; an excerpt from Friedersdorf’s item: The grand jury report in the case of Kermit Gosnell, 72, is among the most horrifying I’ve read. “This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is […]
Issues on which People are Most Resistant to Persuasion
By Ilya Somin on February 6, 2012 11:51 pm in Abortion, Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Political Ignorance
This semester, I am once again teaching Constitutional Law II: The Fourteenth Amendment. I often tell my students in this class that there are three issues on which most people are particularly resistant to rational persuasion: abortion, the death penalty, and affirmative action. And it so happens that the course covers all three. Actually, there […]
Who wants to provoke a constitutional crisis over abortion?
Today South Carolina Republican Senator Jim Demint hosted a forum at which five Republican presidential candidates spoke. The transcript is here. Each candidate appeared one at a time, and the format allowed for in-depth questions and answers. Among the questioners was Princeton University’s Robert George. Prof. George asked each candidate if he or she would support […]
Republican presidential candidates pledge to appoint judges to overturn the unconstitutional anti-abortion law they will sign
By David Kopel on June 18, 2011 4:42 pm in Abortion, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Fourteenth Amendment, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Judicial Nominations, Originalism, Supreme Court
At CNN, Politico, National Review Online’s “The Corner” blog, and at the Susan B. Anthony List website, you can read the developing controversy over some Republican presidential candidates’ refusal to sign the SBA Lists’ “2012 Pro-Life Citizen’s Pledge.” Signers thus far are Bachmann, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Paul, and Santorum. The items on the pledge are: FIRST, […]