Sneaking Around the Constitution: Pretextual “Health” Laws and the Future of Roe v. Wade
Date of Event
9-24-2015
Description
September 24, 2015
Sneaking Around the Constitution: Pretextual “Health” Laws and the Future of Roe v. Wade
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Oliver C. Schroeder, Jr. Scholar-in-Residence Lecture
Nancy Northup President and CEO Center for Reproductive Rights
Recently, reproductive rights have been significantly undermined by an insidious foe: pretextual state laws that purport to advance a legitimate governmental concern – health and safety – but are in fact designed to shut down reproductive healthcare clinics and block access to abortion services. Since 2011, hundreds of such laws have been enacted and many have been challenged in constitutional lawsuits that seek to uphold the protections of Roe v. Wade. As the issue heads for the Supreme Court, this lecture will examine what has happened when such pretextual laws have been challenged in the courts and what is needed to ensure meaningful review of states’ asserted health interests and meaningful access to abortion services. Comparisons will be made to the pretexual use of voter fraud to enact burdensome restrictions on the right to vote. A key topic to be explored is whether the time has come for reproductive rights to have federal statutory protections analogous to those in the Voting Rights Act.
Lecture Series
Law-Medicine Center
Subject Headings
pretextual health laws; Roe v. Wade; reproductive rights; pretextual state laws; health and safety laws; abortion services; constitutional law; women's health
Location
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Document Type
Video
Recommended Citation
Northrup, Nancy, "Sneaking Around the Constitution: Pretextual “Health” Laws and the Future of Roe v. Wade" (2015). Conferences and Symposia. 265.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/law_videos_general/265