Friday August 28 What We Will Cover

As I said today in class, on Friday we will conclude our discussion of Marbury and move on to discuss Ex Parte McCardle (i.e. we will cover pages 1-37 and 37-43). I want to skip over Assignment 2 until next Thursday when we will have an entire class to discuss it.

Sorry if I did not make this as clear as I could have today in class.

Abortion and Disability Discrimination

Ohio is about to prohibit "abortions based on a fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome."

A little know fact about abortion in America is that the abortion rate for babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome is approaching genocide (link). Sex selection abortion is also fairly common.

We will study the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence at length in a few weeks, but for now here is an article from the NYT critical of attempts to prohibit abortions performed because the pregnant woman does not wish to give birth to a baby with a disability such as Downs.

For now, a few questions for you to mull over:

1. Should the law allow Down selection abortions?

2. What about abortions based upon the race of, say, a biracial unborn child?

3. What about abortions based upon the gender of the unborn boy or girl?

4. If science isolates a sexual orientation gene, should abortions based upon sexual orientation be lawful?

5. Or should a pregnant woman have a right to abortion-on-demand for any reason that she chooses?

Handouts

The Handouts are available in the Handout Racks near the South Faculty Suite on 2d Floor of Law Library.