Essays

John Ehrett '21 analyzes the role Vermeule’s book plays in calling for a return to better legal reasoning. Yet, even Vermeule's solution may not address the root of the problem.

Evelyn Blacklock continues her commentary on Vermeule's Common Good Constitutionalism, showing the strengths of the argument, while also demonstrating some needed nuances between the Classical and the Enlightenment perspectives of law.

Evelyn Blacklock examines Prof. Adrian Vermeule's "Common Good Constitutionalism" and the alternative it offers to the status quo camps of jurisprudence.

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.

Anchoring Truths co-founder Garrett Snedeker offers two cheers for Prof. Michael McConnell's recent book on executive power under the Constitution.

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.”

Kody Cooper argues that a new Supreme Court justice in the style of Sotomayor would fail to pass the "test of truth" when it comes to abortion, religious liberty, and takings. If the Senate Judiciary Committee cares about truth, it should therefore disavow the Sotomayor mold.

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."