Equality, Race, Sex, Class, and Contested Facts

In the aftermath of Roe, anti-abortion forces initially sought to pass a constitutional amendment that would recognize fetal personhood and ban all abortions nationwide. But while fighting for this amendment, anti-abortion groups also pushed more incremental restrictions designed to limit access to abortion such as bans on Medicaid reimbursement for abortion for low-income abortions. The success of anti-abortion incrementalism intensified skepticism of the Roe decision among progressives, who questioned the reasoning, timing, and sweeping of the 1973 decision. We will study the narrowing of abortion rights and the growing criticism of Roe from supporters of abortion rights. We will examine the complex reasons for the ongoing polarization of abortion rights. The conflict seemed to have come to a head in 1992 when a conservative supermajority looked ready to dismantle Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (plurality decision) We will read the Casey decision and then study how it further encouraged efforts to rethink the relationship between constitutional equality and abortion. Anti-abortion groups began stressing that abortion did not facilitate equality for women and people who can get pregnant--either because these groups had already achieved or could achieve equality without abortion or because abortion actually harmed them. By contrast, a growing reproductive justice  movement led by people of color connected issues of reproductive health to questions of racial and social justice.