Ben and Professor Arkes break down the intricacies of where there is disagreement amongst Republicans and within the pro-life movement, as well as what individual states may do now that abortion is no longer a constitutionally guaranteed right.
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.
On May 6, Prof. Gerard Bradley of the University of Notre Dame School of Law delivered an address titled, “Moral Truth and Constitutional Conservatism.” We’re pleased to present Prof. Bradley’s lecture in this special edition of the Anchoring Truths Podcast.
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.
Author Steve Hayward joins Deputy Director Garrett Snedeker and JWI Intern Emeline McClellan to discuss his recent book, “Stan Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom.”
Evelyn Blacklock examines Prof. Adrian Vermeule’s “Common Good Constitutionalism” and the alternative it offers to the status quo camps of jurisprudence.
Garrett Snedeker and film expert Onalee McGraw discuss the classic legal drama “12 Angry Men.”
Prof. Arkes discusses “On Overruling Roe” with First Things editor R.R. Reno.
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.”
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.
