At the 2008 UFL conference at Marquette, Sam Calhoun presented a critique of the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart. An expanded version of that paper has just recently been published in the Mississippi Law Journal. The article is entitled “”Partial-Birth Abortion’ is Not Abortion: Carhart II’s Fundamental Misapplication of Roe” and it is available at 79 Miss. L. J. 775-829 (2010).
The title gives a good idea of the basic argument. Sam contends that a “partial-birth abortion” is not in reality an abortion and that accordingly Roe v. Wade does not apply. Because the right to abortion is not implicated, bans on “partial-birth abortions” ought to be subject to and upheld under the rational basis test.
Sam’s article is well worth a careful reading.
Richard M.