A Jurisprudential Red Pill: Part I
Evelyn Blacklock examines Prof. Adrian Vermeule’s “Common Good Constitutionalism” and the alternative it offers to the status quo camps of jurisprudence.
natural law
“12 Angry Men & Natural Law” with Film Expert Onalee McGraw
Garrett Snedeker and film expert Onalee McGraw discuss the classic legal drama “12 Angry Men.”
Podcast at First Things: Hadley Arkes and R. R. Reno discuss “On Overruling Roe”
Prof. Arkes discusses “On Overruling Roe” with First Things editor R.R. Reno.
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.”
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.
Interfaith Discussion of Natural Law
Our guest panelists discuss how Natural Law intertwines with religion and why it matters, how much natural law depends on theology, and who would benefit the most from Natural Law.
Interfaith Discussion of Natural Law
Our guest panelists discuss how Natural Law intertwines with religion and why it matters, how much natural law depends on theology, and who would benefit the most from Natural Law.
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”
States, Courts, and Common-Good Conservatism
We must marry Antifederalist sympathies, which recognize the dangers of concentrating power, to a holistic conservative jurisprudence, says Holden Tanner.
‘Dobbs’ and the Conservative Legal Movement
If ‘Dobbs’ is decided following the ‘neutral principles’ of constitutional interpretation, it would not mean the end of abortion, according to Gerald Bradley, or even the beginning of the end of it. ‘Dobbs’ would instead be the start of a whole new phase of the political struggle over abortion. Yet the Constitution requires more.
