Abortion and Democracy
By Robert Katz The issue of abortion is hard from a legal standpoint, because most questions in a democratic society are supposed to be resolved democratically, through elected representatives, with only a few fundamental rights cordoned off from legislative interference. The clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments forbidding government deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law has been interpreted to safeguard certain rights so fundamental to human freedom and dignity that no amount of due process can justify their deprivation. Determining whether abortion rights fit into that narrow category is the crux of the hard issue. One of the most striking things about Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center , the recent opinion purporting to end the federal constitutional abortion right, is that Justice Alito doesn’t breathe a word about the imposition that an abortion ban would have on women’s liberty. He doesn’t have to, because he would only ac