Dependence, Identity, and Abortion Politics
The abortion rights debate is one of the more sensitive and divisive issues in American politics. It would be a mistake to even characterize it as a singular debate. Rather, our abortion rights discourse cuts across several value-laden issues on which Americans harbor strong convictions. For example, the abortion debate implicates the status of human life, the role of women in society, the proper role of the judiciary, and the status and meaning of fundamental rights. This Essay explores a specific dimension of that debate: the intersection between the legal and moral reasoning used both to justify and the to limit abortions, and the legal and moral reasoning courts have used when confronting decisions concerning medical choices that parents and doctors must make about certain conjoined twins. This juxtaposition reveals both how the treatment of one bioethical situation can have a direct impact on how courts continue to review the permissibility of abortion, and how courts might use new facts and understanding to approve further limitations on the availability of abortions. Each such case can define how society understands the contours of the abortion debate.
