Gonzales v. Carhart and the Court’s “Women’s Regret” Rationale
Gonzales v. Carhart and the Court’s “Women’s Regret” Rationale
Ronald Turner, 43 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1 (2008)
This Article’s discussion of this significant development in the Court’s abortion-rights jurisprudence unfolds as follows. Part I provides a brief discussion of two of the Court’s foundational decisions addressing the constitutionality of state restrictions on a woman’s pregnancy-termination decision –Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Part II discusses Gonzales’s articulation of the “women’s regret” rationale and the Court’s acceptance and endorsement of what it viewed as the “unexceptionable” and “self-evident” premise that “some women” regret their choice to have an abortion. Part III argues that the Court’s recognition of the rationale is an important politico-legal victory for those on the “pro-life” side of this nation’s abortion-rights divide who have been engaged in a decades-long effort to place “women’s regret” front and center in the judicial and legislative arenas. As discussed therein, this triumph and the implications thereof illustrate the interrelationship of law and politics and one way in which Court doctrine can be influenced by and reflect positions espoused by the politico-legal campaigns of opponents of established legal regimes.