For the past forty years, prominent pro-life activists, judges and politicians have invoked the history and legacy of American slavery to elucidate aspects of contemporary abortion politics. As is often the case, many of these popular analogies have been imprecise, underdeveloped and historically simplistic. In Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning, Justin Buckley Dyer provides the first book-length scholarly treatment of the parallels between slavery and abortion in American constitutional development. In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Dyer demonstrates that slavery and abortion really are historically, philosophically and legally intertwined in America. The nexus, however, is subtler and more nuanced than is often suggested, and the parallels involve deep principles of constitutionalism.
• First scholarly treatment of the popular analogy between slavery and abortion • Provides the reader with an accessible writing style • Introduces sober and rigorous analysis into a controversial contemporary political debate
Contents
1. The conscience of a nation; 2. Substance, procedure, and Fourteenth Amendment rights; 3. Dred Scott, Lochner, and the new abortion liberty; 4. Constitutional disharmony after Roe; 5. The politics of abortion history; 6. Private morality, public reasons; 7. Personhood and the ethics of life.
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