Did The Dobbs Decision Go Far Enough? — The Federalist Radio Hour
James Wilson Institute Founder and Director Hadley Arkes joins Emily Jashinsky on The Federalist Radio Hour to explain why the Dobbs opinion did not go far enough.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
“What Comes After Roe” – Gerard V. Bradley
Today, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled.” Almost fifty years after handing down its calamitous abortion decision on January 22, 1973, SCOTUS has finally corrected the biggest mistake it ever made.
After Dobbs: The End of the Beginning
James Wilson Institute Founder Hadley Arkes reflects on the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Samuel Alito’s Prophetic Vision
Senior Scholar David Forte praises Samuel Alito’s courage, as demonstrated by his draft opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
A Post-Roe Legislative Agenda for Congress
Josh Craddock, Affiliated Scholar and alumnus of the James Wilson Fellowship, explores the best courses of action for pro-life congressmen to take after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
The Consummate Statecraft of Samuel Alito
I have to confess that when the news broke last night and I read that careful, exhaustive, impressive opinion from Justice Alito, my eye moved to those key points for which I was looking, and there I fell into a mild despair. For the Justice preserved, as one of the defining strands of his opinion, …
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.”
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.
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.
