Hadley Arkes

April 13, 2022
What the Hearings Missed
In the aftermath of Judge Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court, Hadley Arkes analyzes the Senate hearings. Despite some well-timed questions, Republicans ultimately missed their chance to put Judge Jackson on the record defending the right to kill unwanted children even after birth.

March 8, 2022
Once More Unto the Breach: Arkes v. Whelan on the Overruling of Roe
In a response to Ed Whelan’s critique of “On Overturning Roe,” Prof. Arkes insists that the moral argument against Roe is the only logical one for judges who believe in the deep wrong of abortion. The pro-life cause rests on objective moral truths, not on value judgments, and as a result does not require judges (as Whelan claims) “to read their own moral convictions into the Constitution.”

February 24, 2022
Justice Byron White and Abortion
Responding to Richard Doerflinger's critique of "Waiting for Dobbs," Prof. Arkes asserts that conservative justices could successfully outlaw most abortions by returning to Justice White’s standard: only abort to save the mother’s life. At the same time, however, White did the pro-life cause a lasting disservice by focusing not on the rights of unborn babies but on the abuse of "raw judicial power."

February 9, 2022
Waiting for Dobbs
Hadley Arkes recalls that day, back in 1986, when Justice Byron White, one of the original dissenters in Roe v. Wade, startled Justice John Paul Stevens by suggesting that he too could accept Roe and a “right to abortion” in some form. Stevens seemed genuinely baffled. What White was offering was an understanding that would keep Roe v. Wade as a shell, while the substance was removed. Professor Arkes tries to reconstruct that argument here as an anticipation of what might happen if the Supreme Court seeks to take “the low door under the whole” in the Dobbs case—sustaining the law in Mississippi while affecting not to overrule Roe v. Wade.

January 10, 2022
Founder's Keepers: Arkes on The Role of Govenment in Defining our Culture
In 2006, Prof. Hadley Arkes makes some timeless remarks at The Federalist Society on what the proper role of government is when it comes to culture.

January 6, 2022
Founder's Keepers: Arkes on Mary Eberstadt's Review of Judge Robert Conrad's "John Fisher & Thomas More"
Prof. Hadley Arkes on a review that Mary Eberstadt wrote of Judge Conrad's book "John Fisher & Thomas More"

November 4, 2021
Judge Pryor’s Friendly Fire
Prof. Arkes defends "A Better Originalism" against Judge William Pryor's critique.

October 6, 2021
Whelan-Arkes Exchange: Last Round
JWI's Founder and Director Hadley Arkes goes another round with Ed Whelan and discusses the rightful place for moral reasoning in judicial jurisprudence

October 5, 2021
The Dobbs Case and the Strains of Prudence
Prof. Arkes analyzes the arguments at play in the upcoming Dobbs case, and explains that while there are potential outfielders and stockbrokers, there is no such thing as a "potential" human being.