{"id":3739,"date":"2005-10-31T19:42:30","date_gmt":"2005-11-01T02:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2005\/10\/31\/alito-and-the-rights-of-fathers\/"},"modified":"2005-10-31T19:42:30","modified_gmt":"2005-11-01T02:42:30","slug":"alito-and-the-rights-of-fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/31\/alito-and-the-rights-of-fathers\/","title":{"rendered":"Alito and the rights of fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tIt appears that the dissent Alito wrote in Casey is going to play very heavily in the discussion on his confirmation. So here’s a link to it<\/a> and a bit of the essence:<\/p>\n

\nMy disagreement with the majority regarding a single provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. \u00a7 3201 et seq. (1983 & Supp.1991), results from disagreement about the portion of Justice O\u2019Connor\u2019s two-part test that must be applied to this provision. Under that test, as the majority explains, a law that imposes an \u201cundue burden\u201d must serve a \u201ccompelling\u201d state interest. By contrast, a law that does not impose an \u201cundue burden\u201d must simply be \u201crationally\u201d or \u201creasonably\u201d related to a \u201clegitimate\u201d state interest. The majority holds that Section 3209 constitutes an undue burden. The majority therefore applies the first prong of the two-part test and strikes down Section 3209 on the ground that it does not serve a \u201ccompelling\u201d interest. I do not believe that Section 3209 has been shown to impose an undue burden as that term is used in the relevant Supreme Court opinions; I therefore apply the second prong of the two-part test; and I conclude that Section 3209 is constitutional because it is \u201crationally related\u201d to a \u201clegitimate\u201d state interest.<\/p>\n

Although the majority and I apply different prongs of this two-part test, I see no indication that we disagree concerning the conclusion produced when either prong is applied to Section 3209. If the majority is correct that Section 3209 must satisfy heightened scrutiny, I agree that its constitutionality is doubtful. Similarly, I do not interpret the majority opinion to mean that Section 3209 cannot satisfy the rational relationship test. Indeed, the majority acknowledges that Section 3209 serves a \u201clegitimate\u201d interest. See majority opin. at 715, 716. Thus, my major disagreement with the majority concerns the question whether Section 3209 imposes an \u201cundue burden,\u201d and I will therefore turn to that question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It strikes me as well-researched and well-reasoned, and if there’s a problem behind it at all it’s in the vagueness of O’Connor’s concept of “undue burden.”\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that the dissent Alito wrote in Casey is going to play very heavily in the discussion on his confirmation. So here’s a link to it and a bit of the essence: My disagreement with the majority regarding a single provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. \u00a7 3201 et seq. (1983 … Continue reading “Alito and the rights of fathers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-Yj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}