For next week please read these pages:
Casebook p. 683-700
Casebook p. 718-729;737-756
Zoom Session: Only one zoom session this week—Wednesday November 4 at 5 PM
Class Video Links
Video 25
https://unl.box.com/s/1pdgxvg7so3gunec12u3fvqag69f3g7h
Video 26
https://unl.box.com/s/pkmrpx8hwfv6fy3jr9n62ii138gr456o
Video 27
https://unl.box.com/s/e09icpfuraroq087lbocczni24d46hn6
I will also show up for an optional Zoom Q & A session on Thursday November 5 @ 5 PM
For next week, read these pages:
Casebook p. 594-617
Casebook p.636-648; Obergefell (p. 555-572)
Casebook p. 663-683 (Introduction to equal protection)
Zoom Session: Only one zoom session this week—Wednesday October 28 at 5 PM
Class Video Links
Video 23
https://unl.box.com/s/4nznq3z31v04mlmsof8ubip5alf0696e
Video 24
https://unl.box.com/s/sou0529bcr0vocmcf6upzlh322i21nzj
I will also show up for an optional Zoom Q & A session on Thursday October 29 @ 5 PM
Just this past Term the Court decided an abortion case, June Medical Services v. Gee, a case out of Louisiana involving an abortion law—The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act—that requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital located within 30 miles of the clinic where they perform abortions. The problem is that the Court had already declared a nearly-identical Texas law unconstitutional in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Chief Justice Robert’s, who had dissented in Whole Women’s Health, changed sides in June Medical and was the 5th vote to strike down the Louisiana law. The Chief said he still believes Whole Women’s Health was wrongly decided, but switched sides based upon stare decisis. But Roberts practiced a little judicial minimalism of his own; although he applied Whole Women’s Health as a binding precedent, he gutted much of the reasoning of that decision as itself inconsistent with Casey. Basically, he stated that if a law regulating abortion does not impose an undue burden on abortion, it should be upheld under a deferential rational basis test rather than a cost/benefit balancing test.
Roberts’ controlling opinion in June Medical has already been cited by the Nebraska Attorney General in support of Nebraska’s recent ban on dismemberment abortions. So Roberts’ opinion in June Medical actually moved the dial a point or two back in favor of upholding reasonable laws restricting abortion.
Justice Thomas responded in dissent to the Chief’s view of stare decisis as follows:
“The plurality and THE CHIEF JUSTICE…conclude that Louisiana’s law is unconstitutional under our precedents. But those decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution’s text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled.”
