Religion & Law

I just finished another semester teaching con law and another effort, which always comes toward the end of the semester, to explore the "life or health of the mother" exception that Roe and Casey require for abortion laws even post-viability.  It always takes a while to explain how that exception has been construed in some (but not all) later cases to encompass a wide range of effects beyond physical harms.  Did the exception ever really go so far as to guarantee "abortion on demand through all of pregnancy," as many pro-life people have claimed, and what's the status of the exception now?  From here on it will be much easier for me to think through and teach these questions, because Steve Gilles (Qunnipiac) has written a great article, "Roe's Life-or-Health Exception: Self-Defense or Relative Safety?," 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 525 (2010), a reprint of which just came in my mail.  It's a model of how to work through an issue and identify how the Court's opinions have handled it, mishandled it, dodged it, etc.  As Steve says, the article is essentially descriptive, but "it does make one normative claim: that the Supreme Court?s failure to explain the life-or-health exception?s rationale and scope is utterly irresponsible."  Read the piece: it's a great resource.