Abortion and the Pied Piper of Compromise

Abstract

In this article, Professor Clark offers a detailed analysis of the controversy among legal scholars which has long surrounded the issue of legal regulation of abortion. Professor Clark begins by focusing on a recent book by Professor Laurence Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes. She argues that although Tribe claims to seek a compromise solution to the abortion problem, he fails in this pursuit both because he does not truly search for compromise and because he is unwilling to explore intermediate moral or legal positions that are not acceptable to either the pro-choice or pro-life movements. In contrast, Professor Clark proposes a search for intermediate positions which, she argues, better reflect the views of the many people who believe that women have a strong interest in retaining decisional capacity over their reproductive lives and that human life possesses an intrinsic and inherent value to society that increases as pregnancy advances. Professor Clark concludes that a recognition of intermediate positions on abortion would assist the Supreme Court in defining legitimate state interests in the regulation of abortion

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