PBA brief

For those who are interested, an amicus brief -- which I co-authored with Prof. Michael Paulsen (Minnesota) -- in support of the United States' position that the federal ban on partial-birth abortion should be upheld is available here.  Here is the first paragraph:

For as long as the American public has known about partial-birth abortion, we have—by comfortable and consistent margins—agreed with former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that this gruesome practice is “infanticide, and one would be too many.”  Whether we oppose elective abortions as a matter of moral principle or regard a woman’s legal access to abortion as a component of ordered liberty; whether we regard this Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as occasions of dramatic and damaging judicial overreaching or as vindications of privacy and autonomy; and whatever our views might be on a wide range of economic, social, and political questions, we have repeatedly and overwhelmingly concluded, in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, that partial-birth abortion is a barbarism that may and should be prohibited.  This conclusion is entirely consistent with our shared, abiding commitment to individual freedom under and through the rule of law, and it is one that our Constitution permits us to embrace. In our “democratic society,” the debate over partial-birth abortion continues, and this Court should not cut it short.