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April 26, 2007
Scholarship and the Politically-Charged Topic
As many of us digest the Supreme Court's opinion on partial-birth abortion (Gonzales v. Carhart), both sides are predicting further rounds of legislation and litigation on the politically-charged topic of abortion.
What role can legal scholarship play in this debate? Certainly, there have been (and will be) many articles published in this area. Many of these, however, identify with one side or the other immediately and propound views consistent with that political viewpoint. I wonder how much impact these really have-- I doubt that those who disagree with the asserted viewpoint even read them, given the polarization on this topic.
This seems like an area where collaboration with other fields might be especially helpful, and offer an objective aspect to an article. Particularly, collaboration with those in medicine and sociology would be especially interesting. I'm not suggesting that any article on abortion would be wholly objective or not identify with one position or the other; rather, I hope that some new angles of approach on this contentious topic might shed new light.
-- Mark Osler
April 26, 2007 | Permalink
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Mark, are you also open to discussion of the larger question of legal scholarship and public impact? Recently many scientists have started becoming more activist and public with their research and learning to sell their ideas to the public. I like the idea of multi-disciplinary work, but suspect that part of the equation involves presenting the results in channels and formats that would assist public deliberation.
Is it possible to do "fair and balanced," and multidisciplinary, research on abortion? What would that look like - a discussion about medical viability, and then laying out different laws that flow from different assumptions about viability, without favoring any particular view? Helping citizens decide what kinds of laws they would want, depending on their personal beliefs about the beginning of life, with a particular emphasis on gray areas?
Posted by: Gene Koo | Apr 27, 2007 11:39:25 AM
How about having academic try to draft model legislation for whatever position they hope to champion. Like the Model Penal Code, the development of any model legislation has to temper optimism with realism. I think scholarship that seek to develop, describe and defend model legislation --- whether to further restrict abortions OR to legislatively safeguard abortions in light of Carhart --- would be one effective way that legal academics could usefully contribute to the new abortion dialogue.
Posted by: Doug B. | Apr 29, 2007 7:19:27 AM
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