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Abstract:
The late Professor Arthur Leff believed that standard methods for grounding normative assertions fail to provide a solid foundation for moral judgment because none provides a satisfactory answer to what Leff called the grand 'sez who?' - a universal taunt by which a skeptic may challenge the standing/competency of the speaker to make authoritative moral assessments. Leff argued that as a matter of logic no system of morals premised in mankind alone ever could withstand the taunt. His provocative conclusion was that the only unchallengeable response to the grand 'sez who?' is God sez.

This Article demonstrates the continued relevance and validity of Leff's critique by evaluating three contemporary discussions of morality: (1) Judge Richard Posner's attack on academic moralism; (2) Professor Edward Wilson's assertion that morality has a biological basis; and (3) Professor Steven Pinker's attempt to distinguish between morality and our innate human nature. Although Leff did not discuss the practical possibility of a God-based moral system, this Article examines the practical question, focusing on three critical presuppositions implicit in seeking God's help to discern the right: (1) God actually exists; (2) one looks to the God who actually exists; and (3) this true God communicates what is "right" in understandable ways. While not providing any final answers, this Article honestly grapples with the three key issues, refuting some common objections to a God-premised morality, while acknowledging the existence of some genuine difficulties.

Abstract:
Most court decisions have invalidated federal and state attempts to ban partial-birth abortion. This Essay argues that these decisions are based on a misreading of Roe v. Wade. The courts have viewed killing via the partial-birth procedure as an abortion rather than as what it actually is - infanticide. Due to this classification error, constitutional safeguards applicable only to the abortion right have been improperly applied to an act that kills a human being in the process of being born. The irony is that ban advocates have contributed significantly to this misclassification by attaching the label abortion to the partial-birth technique.

Partial-birth abortion bans have also been criticized as making no moral sense because they prohibit only a particular method of killing a fetus. Even with a ban in place, the same fetuses may be killed via different procedures. Consequently, what purpose do the bans serve? This Essay argues that bans are an important incremental step, fully consistent with Roe, to protect a class of humanity - fetuses being born - that is morally no less deserving of protection than the class of just-born infants.

Abstract:
President George W. Bush has twice vetoed measures to provide federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research requiring the destruction of human embryos. Each veto was premised in part upon his religious beliefs. President Bush's reliance upon his faith has provoked a strong negative reaction. This Essay argues that this criticism is baseless.

The Essay demonstrates that important political leaders spanning three centuries - including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. - have invoked religious beliefs in explaining their positions. The principle of separation of church and state, properly understood, is not a persuasive basis for criticizing this religious heritage. President Bush, in relying upon his faith to justify his vetoes, acted in accord with well-established national tradition.

The Essay also examines various arguments that religious discourse in the public square is normatively inappropriate and thus should be excluded. All of these critiques fail. Anyone genuinely committed to diversity and to democratic ideals should support a rich array of disputants in public policy controversies, including religious believers openly proclaiming their faith-based values.

Abstract:
In Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (Abortion), Professor Laurence Tribe professes to undertake the ambitious task of alleviating the intractable dispute about the question of abortion. His stated method is to give voice to the human reality on each side of the [dispute], keeping both the woman and the fetus in focus at the same time. This Article will show that, in fact, Abortion, by defending abortion on demand as sanctioned by Roe v. Wade, dehumanizes both women and preborn children. Tribe, by requiring society to provide a mother the license to destroy her pre-born child in order to ensure her "equality," not only assumes women's inequality apart from this license, but also releases women from that moral accountability that is the hallmark of taking another person seriously. To Tribe, a preborn child's meaning and worth, if they exist at all, are found only in the subjective eye of his/her mother. The bigger the preborn baby, the more pangs of sorrow Tribe acknowledges for his/her death, should death be the mother's choice. Nonetheless, the child, denied any meaningful protection of his/her life, is effectively dehumanized.

This Article will demonstrate that a comprehensive prolife approach is the only way to achieve the goal of taking both women and fetal life seriously. While there are other integral elements, the core of such an approach is, regardless of the circumstances that lead a woman to seek an abortion, to provide from conception the same protection for the lives of preborn humans that is provided to humans postbirth. In explaining and defending this position, the Article will further reveal the flaws in Tribe's perspective, as well as critique other reviews of Abortion.

Abstract:
In explaining his constitutional objection to Wisconsin's partial-birth abortion ban, Judge Richard Posner stated:

We . . . do not doubt that if in the course of a normal labor the mother asked her obstetrician to kill the baby in the birth canal and he did so, the state could criminalize this act as infanticide. . . . But [in a partial-birth abortion] . . . there is no issue of infanticide, of killing a live baby that is half-born.

Posner thus contrasts killing during "normal labor" with partial-birth abortion. The former can be constitutionally prohibited, but the latter cannot. Why the distinction? Because to Posner the former involves "killing a live baby that is half-born," whereas the latter does not.

This Article will show that Judge Posner is correct to assert that killing a baby in the midst of the birth process is not constitutionally protected. The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade strongly implied that the abortion right is not this broad, and Judge Posner instinctively agrees.

But Judge Posner is wrong to say that partial-birth abortion does not kill "a live baby that is half-born." This Article will demonstrate that the partial-birth procedure in fact does kill a baby during its birth. Ban proponents have therefore been correct in their long-standing argument that the partial-birth procedure is not really an abortion. Consequently, Roe, properly understood, is inapplicable to partial-birth abortion bans.

Courts, however, including the United States Supreme Court in Carhart II, have nonetheless routinely used Roe/Casey's analytical framework to evaluate bans. This common mistake completely undermines current partial-birth abortion jurisprudence. The rational basis test, not Roe/Casey, is the proper evaluative tool. Using the correct standard could very well have significant consequences for future challenges to the Federal Ban and to the bans of the various states.

Jurisprudence, Federal Ban, Abortion