Evans v United Kingdom: Paradigms Of Parenting

Abstract

results of a sonogram of the developing foetus and so on. In short, what seems likely is the continued attrition of a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy-but not under the rubric of 'protecting' the foetus, rather sheltering under the neo-paternalist pretext of 'protecting' the woman. If, though, there is any lesson to be extracted from the history of abortion regulation since Roe, it is that much depends on the Court's composition. Gonzales suggests an emerging, if fragile conservative 5-4 majority on the Court. Pivotal in the emergence of this conservative majority was the retirement in 2006 ofJustice O'Connor-a former member of the Arizona state legislature appointed to the Court by President Reagan, but who disappointed many social conservatives with what they perceived as her slide 'to the centre'. O'Connor had authored Casey, and was the critical fifth vote in Stenberg. O'Connor's replacement was Justice Alito-an Appeals Court judge who, in the 1980s, had worked as a Reagan political appointee in the Department of Justice. If the retirement of Justice O'Connor was pivotal, it is, however, Justice Kennedy who, today, is the pivot around which the conservative majority spins. His is the critical fifth vote: Kennedy voted with the majority in Casey, but vigorously dissented in Stenberg and has now authored the majority opinion in Gonzales. It can, of course, be dangerous to read too much into a single decision. Yet, at the same time, Gonzales seems portentous. Coming, as it does, so early in the'chiefship' of ChiefJustice Roberts, and on as divisive an issue as abortion, it is difficult not to look upon Gonzales and wonder whether it is a harbinger of a conservative counter-revolution on the Court. After all, Gonzales is the first decision to uphold a ban on a specific abortion procedure, and also represents the first time that the Court has approved an abortion restriction that fails to provide an exception for the health of the pregnant woman. In this, the Roberts Court has, within a couple of years, not only achieved the conservative majority that eluded the Rehnquist Court but secured a long-desired victory for social conservatives that breaks a decade long stalemate on abortion.