Legal Spirits Episode 010: The New Abortion Laws
Release Date
6-17-2019
Description
In this podcast, Center Director Mark Movsesian and Associate Director Marc DeGirolami discuss a raft of new laws passed by several states regulating abortion. They explore the constitutionality of these laws under the regime established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and they think through what the laws might suggest about the growing cultural divisions in America. Mark and Marc survey some of the most restrictive and most permissive of these new laws, talk about the Supreme Court’s recent per curiam opinion in Box v. Planned Parenthood and some of the internal dynamics on the present Court suggested by the opinion as respects abortion, and offer some perspective on the Court’s historic ambitions with respect to this deeply controversial subject. Listen in!
ADDENDUM: Our friend, Professor Carter Snead, points out two small errors in the podcast. First, recent studies have shown that with treatment, viability can begin as early as 22 weeks. Second, the Alabama law has exceptions for situations posing a serious health risk to the mother and where there is a possibility that the woman poses a serious physical health risk to herself because of a serious mental illness.