Reflections on 'Looking Back on Planned Parenthood v. Casey'

Abstract

This paper is a comment on a recent article about abortion by Professor Christina Whitman. Her article is, by law review standards, rather short and perhaps not that significant and perhaps not worth the effort to criticize. Yet, I think it is important to do so. Professor Whitman is a prominent law professor who holds a distinguished chair at the University of Michigan Law School, one of the nation’s best law schools. Her article was published in a special issue of the Michigan Law Review that marked the centennial of that publication. Moreover, her article calls for a type of scholarship that will make the law “honest and responsive” and that will promote “more credible and stable legal doctrine.” Her article is, in my estimation, almost a complete failure in nearly every respect and if scholarship is to accomplish the ends that she proposes, it is important that these failures be explored.