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Supreme Confusion

From the June/July 2007 Print Edition

Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History by Joseph W. Dellapenna Carolina Academic Press, 1,300 pages, $95 History has not been kind to Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion for the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade , and for good reason. It studiously avoided rudimentary facts of human biology and . . . . Continue Reading »

Put on Your Body Armor

From Web Exclusives

Concerning yesterday’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart , a few preliminary observations based on a very quick reading:The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence remains a singular embarrassment. That fact is well known by, and infuriating to, Roe ‘s sophisticated supporters and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court Rules

From the October 2003 Print Edition

Not so very long ago, defenders of judicial activism felt it necessary to justify how an unelected body of lifetime appointees could become the definitive voice of constitutional authority in a democratic society. One thinks, for example, of Professor Alexander Bickel of Yale Law School, who . . . . Continue Reading »

Rewriting the Founders

From the April 1999 Print Edition

Ever since Professor Woodrow Wilson laid it down as an article of Progressive faith that the (original) Constitution was inadequate to the tasks of modern governance, academic scriveners have leveled whole forests to conform its provisions with what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once called the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Coming Crisis

From the January 1998 Print Edition

American society may soon embark upon the most important constitutional debate since the early nineteenth century. Then the issue was slavery, and the question was whether one human being may own property in another; now the issue is assisted suicide, and the question is whether one human being may . . . . Continue Reading »