First Things RSS Feed - Gerard V. Bradley https://www.firstthings.com/author/gerard-v-bradley en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:51:26 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/gerard-v-bradley 60 The Unexpected Vocation https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/05/the-unexpected-vocation https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/05/the-unexpected-vocation Fri, 17 May 2024 06:00:00 -0400 The following essay is adapted from a commencement address given at Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, on May 12, 2024.

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]]> Life After Dobbs https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/08/life-after-dobbs https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/08/life-after-dobbs Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0400 The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” It is now one year, and one full election cycle, since the Supreme Court closed its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization with those words. That is time enough to gauge how the “people and their elected representatives” have used the authority “return[ed]” to them.

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]]> Downstream from Dobbs https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/10/downstream-from-dobbs https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/10/downstream-from-dobbs Wed, 12 Oct 2022 06:00:00 -0400 The Supreme Court’s June reversal of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization could mightily influence the coming midterm elections. Many Democrats hope so. To help make their dreams come true, Democrats talk of Dobbs in apocalyptic terms. They say that Dobbs ’s reasoning will erase the landmark cases that made contraception, sodomy, and same-sex marriage constitutional rights, namely: Griswold v. Connecticut , Lawrence v. Texas , and Obergefell v. Hodges . 

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]]> What Comes After Roe https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/06/what-comes-after-roe https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/06/what-comes-after-roe Fri, 24 Jun 2022 16:15:00 -0400 Today, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled.” Almost fifty years after handing down its calamitous abortion decision on January 22, 1973, SCOTUS has finally corrected the biggest mistake it ever made.

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]]> Our Divided House https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/12/our-divided-house https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/12/our-divided-house Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0500 Crisis of the Two Constitutions:
The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness
by charles r. kesler
encounter, 488 pages, $34.99

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]]> Grimm Indeed https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/grimm-indeed https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/grimm-indeed Fri, 02 Jul 2021 06:00:00 -0400 On June 28, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case of Gloucester County School Board v. Grimm. It takes four justices’ votes to grant review. In Grimm there were just two—those of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. So the best-known and longest-running of the “transgender bathroom” cases has ended with a whimper. 

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]]> Fulton and the Future of Religious Liberty https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/06/fulton-and-the-future-of-religious-liberty https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/06/fulton-and-the-future-of-religious-liberty Fri, 18 Jun 2021 06:00:00 -0400 After receiving more than 2,500 pages of briefing and after more than a half-year of post-argument cogitation, the Court has emitted a wisp of a decision that leaves religious liberty in a confused and vulnerable state. Those who count on this Court to stand up for the First Amendment have every right to be disappointed—as am I.”

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]]> Dobbs to be Decided https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/dobbs-to-be-decided https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/dobbs-to-be-decided Tue, 18 May 2021 06:00:00 -0400 The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will decide Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . Dobbs is a Mississippi abortion case that pro-lifers have long hoped—and pro-choicers long feared—that the Court would accept for review. They have held their breaths for an exceptionally long time. The petition for review was filed last June.

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]]> An Opportunity to Overturn Roe https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/04/an-opportunity-to-overturn-roe https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/04/an-opportunity-to-overturn-roe Tue, 27 Apr 2021 06:00:00 -0400 When Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in last October as a Supreme Court justice, many hoped and others feared that the fuse was lit on Roe v. Wade . Many say that there is now a six-justice “pro-life” majority on the Court. What this is supposed to mean is unclear. It is not apparent that six justices believe all abortions—or even all elective (non-therapeutic) abortions—are morally wrong. Nor is it evident that six justices believe that almost all abortions should be prohibited by law. It is, however, practically certain that all the justices save for Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor believe that Roe was wrongly decided. These six also believe, albeit to varying degrees, that Roe was a mistake that has haunted the Court, and challenged what they would call its “legitimacy,” ever since.

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]]> Moral Constitutionalism https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/03/moral-constitutionalism https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/03/moral-constitutionalism Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500 On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court held that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on workplace discrimination on the basis of sex proscribed not just differential treatment of male and female employees, but also differential treatment of workers on the basis of homosexuality or transgender identity. This feat of alchemy prompted a former law professor to stand up the next day in the United States Senate and declare that the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County represented “the end of the conservative legal movement.”

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