Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T05:13:38.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Movement Litigation and Unilateral Disarmament: Abortion and the Right to Die

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Richard S. Price  and
Thomas M. Keck
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Detractors have long criticized the use of courts to achieve social change because judicial victories tend to provoke counterproductive political backlashes. Backlash arguments typically assert or imply that if movement litigators had relied on democratic rather than judicial politics, their policy victories would have been better insulated from opposition. We argue that these accounts wrongly assume that the unilateral decision by a group of movement advocates to eschew litigation will lead to a reduced role for courts in resolving the relevant policy and political conflicts. To the contrary, such decisions will often result in a policy field with judges every bit as active, but with the legal challenges initiated and framed by the advocates' opponents. We document this claim and explore its implications for constitutional politics via a counterfactual thought experiment rooted in historical case studies of litigation involving abortion and the right to die.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , Fall 2015 , pp. 880 - 907
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

America. 1969. Abortion Laws and the Courts. America, November 29, 515.Google Scholar
Ball, Howard. 2012. At Liberty to Die: The Battle for Death with Dignity in America. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Bickel, Alexander M. [1962] 1986. The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics, 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Brace, Paul, Langer, Laura, and Hall, Melinda Gann. 2000. Measuring the Preferences of State Supreme Court Judges. Journal of Politics 62 (2): 387–413.Google Scholar
Brody, Jane E. 1972. City Will Move to Prevent a Ban on Abortions. New York Times, January 7, A26.Google Scholar
Burns, Gene. 2005. The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Byrn, Robert M. 1966–1967. Abortion in Perspective. Duquesne University Law Review 5 (2): 125–141.Google Scholar
Capoccia, Giovanni, and Kelemen, R. Daniel. 2007. The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism. World Politics 59 (3): 341–369.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott L. 2013. Empirical Studies of Law and Social Change: What Is the Field? What Are the Questions? Wisconsin Law Review 2013:171–204.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott L., and NeJaime, Douglas. 2010. Lawyering for Marriage Equality. UCLA Law Review 57:1235–1331.Google Scholar
Dubow, Sara. 2011. Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eberle, Edward J. 2002. Dignity and Liberty: Constitutional Visions in Germany and the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Ellis, Richard J. 2002. Democratic Delusions: The Initiative Process in America. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Fontana, David, and Braman, Donald. 2012. Judicial Backlash or Just Backlash: Evidence from a National Experiment. Columbia Law Review 112 (4):731–799.Google Scholar
Garrow, David J. 1994. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Gillman, Howard. 2002. How Political Parties Can Use the Courts to Advance Their Agendas: Federal Courts in the United States, 1875–1891. American Political Science Review 96 (3): 511–524.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader. 1985. Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade . North Carolina Law Review 63:375–386.Google Scholar
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1987. Abortion and Divorce in Western Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Graber, Mark A. 1993. The Non‐Majoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary. Studies in American Political Development 7:35–73.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, Linda. 2005. Justices Accept Case Weighing Assisted Suicide. New York Times, February 23, A1.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, Linda, and Siegel, Reva B. 2010. Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling. New York: Kaplan Publishing.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, Linda, and Siegel, Reva B. 2011. Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash. Yale Law Journal 120:2028–2087.Google Scholar
Hillyard, Daniel, and Dombrink, John. 2001. Dying Right: The Death with Dignity Movement. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. 2009. Beyond Backlash: Assessing the Impact of Judicial Decisions on LGBT Rights. Law & Society Review 43 (1): 151–185.Google Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. 2014. Judicial Politics in Polarized Times. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Randall. 1989. Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yale Law Journal 98:999–1067.Google Scholar
Kingston, James, Whelan, Anthony, and Bacik, Ivana. 1997. Abortion and the Law. Dublin: Round Hall Sweet & Maxwell.Google Scholar
Klarman, Michael J. 2004. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klarman, Michael J. 2005. Brown and Lawrence (and Goodridge). Michigan Law Review 104:431–489.Google Scholar
Klarman, Michael J. 2013. From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same‐Sex Marriage. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klemserud, Judy. 1971. He's the Legal Guardian for the Fetuses About to be Aborted. New York Times, December 17, A48.Google Scholar
Kommers, Donald P. 1997. The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2nd ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lader, Lawrence. 1973. Abortion II: Making the Revolution. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Lemieux, Scott. 2004. Constitutional Politics and the Political Impact of Abortion Litigation: Judicial Power and Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective. Ph.D. diss., Department of Political Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.Google Scholar
Lemieux, Scott E., and Lovell, George. 2010. Legislative Defaults: Interbranch Power Sharing and Abortion Politics. Polity 42 (2): 210–243.Google Scholar
Lovell, George I. 2003. Legislative Deferrals: Statutory Ambiguity, Judicial Power, and American Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McConnell, Michael W. 1997. The Right to Die and the Jurisprudence of Tradition. Utah Law Review 1997:665–708.Google Scholar
Merton, Andrew H. 1981. Enemies of Choice: The Right‐to‐Life Movement and Its Threat to Abortion. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
New York Times. 1971. Order Is Sought in Abortion Suit. New York Times, December 10, A32.Google Scholar
Nossiff, Rosemary. 2001. Before Roe: Abortion Policy in the States. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
O'Keefe, Mark, and Green, Ashbel S. 1997. Assisted‐Suicide Law Goes into Effect Immediately. Oregonian, November 5, A1.Google Scholar
Post, Robert, and Siegel, Reva. 2007. Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash. Harvard Civil Rights‐Civil Liberties Law Review 42:373–433.Google Scholar
Powe, Lucas A. 2009. The Supreme Court and the American Elite, 1789–2008. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Roesler, Richard. 2008. “Suicide” Not in Initiative Summary. Spokesman‐Review, March 1, B1.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 1991. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 2008. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change, rev. ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Gordon. 2009. Law's Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 1991. Three Civil Rights Fallacies. California Law Review 79 (3): 751–774.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 1999. One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tetlock, Philip E., and Belkin, Aaron. 1996. Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives. In Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives, ed. Tetlock, Philip E. and Belkin, Aaron, 1–38. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasson, Robert E. 1971. A Lawyer Challenges the Abortion Law. New York Times, December 4, A29.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith E. 2005. “Interpose Your Friendly Hand”: Political Supports for the Exercise of Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court. American Political Science Review 99 (4): 583–596.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, J. Harvie III. 2009. Of Guns, Abortions, and the Unraveling Rule of Law. Virginia Law Review 95:253–323.Google Scholar
Williams, Robert F. 2009. The Law of American State Constitutions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Abortion I Case (1975), 39 BVerfGE 1Google Scholar
Attorney Gen. v. X [1992] 1 I.R. 1Google Scholar
Baxter v. State of Mont., 354 Mont. 234 (Mont. 2009)Google Scholar
Blick v. Office of Div. of Criminal Justice, No. HHD‐CV‐09‐5033392‐S (Super. Ct., Dist. of Hartford Nov. 19, 2009)Google Scholar
Bonbrest v. Klotz, 65 F. Supp. 138 (D.D.C. 1946)Google Scholar
Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954)Google Scholar
Byrn v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 31 N.Y.2d 194 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Byrn v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 38 A.D.2d 316 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 1972)Google Scholar
City of N.Y. v. Wyman, 30 N.Y.2d 537 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Compassion in Dying v. State of Wash., 49 F.3d 586 (9th Cir. 1995)Google Scholar
Dietrich v. Inhabitants of Northhampton, 138 Mass. 14 (1884)Google Scholar
Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)Google Scholar
Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006)Google Scholar
Kelly v. Coakley, SJ‐2012‐0216, docketed at http://www.ma‐appellatecourts.org/search_number.php?dno=SJ‐2012‐0216&get=Search Google Scholar
Lee v. Harcleroad, 522 U.S. 927 (1997) (cert. denied)Google Scholar
Lee v. Oregon, 891 F. Supp. 1429 (D. Or. 1995)Google Scholar
Lee v. Oregon, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997)Google Scholar
New Mexico v. Brandenberg, No. D‐202‐CV 2012‐02909 (2d Jud. Dist. Ct. Jan. 13, 2014)Google Scholar
Oregon v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2004)Google Scholar
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)Google Scholar
Robin v. Incorporated Vill. of Hempstead, 30 N.Y.2d 347 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)Google Scholar
Toia v. Klein, 433 U.S. 902 (1977)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 80 F.3d 716 (2d Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 518 U.S. 1055 (1996) (cert. granted)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 85 F.3d 1440 (9th Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 517 U.S. 1241 (1996) (stay granted by)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 518 U.S. 1057 (1996) (cert. granted)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)Google Scholar
Abortion I Case (1975), 39 BVerfGE 1Google Scholar
Attorney Gen. v. X [1992] 1 I.R. 1Google Scholar
Baxter v. State of Mont., 354 Mont. 234 (Mont. 2009)Google Scholar
Blick v. Office of Div. of Criminal Justice, No. HHD‐CV‐09‐5033392‐S (Super. Ct., Dist. of Hartford Nov. 19, 2009)Google Scholar
Bonbrest v. Klotz, 65 F. Supp. 138 (D.D.C. 1946)Google Scholar
Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954)Google Scholar
Byrn v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 31 N.Y.2d 194 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Byrn v. New York City Health & Hosps. Corp., 38 A.D.2d 316 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 1972)Google Scholar
City of N.Y. v. Wyman, 30 N.Y.2d 537 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Compassion in Dying v. State of Wash., 49 F.3d 586 (9th Cir. 1995)Google Scholar
Dietrich v. Inhabitants of Northhampton, 138 Mass. 14 (1884)Google Scholar
Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)Google Scholar
Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006)Google Scholar
Kelly v. Coakley, SJ‐2012‐0216, docketed at http://www.ma‐appellatecourts.org/search_number.php?dno=SJ‐2012‐0216&get=Search Google Scholar
Lee v. Harcleroad, 522 U.S. 927 (1997) (cert. denied)Google Scholar
Lee v. Oregon, 891 F. Supp. 1429 (D. Or. 1995)Google Scholar
Lee v. Oregon, 107 F.3d 1382 (9th Cir. 1997)Google Scholar
New Mexico v. Brandenberg, No. D‐202‐CV 2012‐02909 (2d Jud. Dist. Ct. Jan. 13, 2014)Google Scholar
Oregon v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2004)Google Scholar
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)Google Scholar
Robin v. Incorporated Vill. of Hempstead, 30 N.Y.2d 347 (N.Y. 1972)Google Scholar
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)Google Scholar
Toia v. Klein, 433 U.S. 902 (1977)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 80 F.3d 716 (2d Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 518 U.S. 1055 (1996) (cert. granted)Google Scholar
Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 85 F.3d 1440 (9th Cir. 1996)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 517 U.S. 1241 (1996) (stay granted by)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 518 U.S. 1057 (1996) (cert. granted)Google Scholar
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)Google Scholar