Anti-Constitutional Dobbs NYLS PRESENTATION V 2
Anti-Constitutional Dobbs NYLS PRESENTATION V 2
Anti-Constitutional Dobbs NYLS PRESENTATION V 2
Dobbs v. Jackson
Reginald Oh*
Introduction
1
II. The Dobbs Fundamental Rights Analysis
For Alito, there is only one point in time that truly matters-
1868, the year that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. 3
Alito emphasizes that “how the States regulated abortion
when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted” is “the most
important historical fact” for deeply rooted analysis.4
What I call Alito’s deeply rooted in 1868 test has two simple
steps. First, conduct historical-legal research and find out how
each state in 1868 regulated a liberty like abortion.5
2
quarters of the States, 28 out of 37, had enacted statues
making abortion a crime. . . . .”7 Alito then declares that the
75% figure reflects an “overwhelming consensus of state
laws” rejecting abortion as a right.8
The first issue was whether Congress had the power to create
a national bank in the first place.10
6
Id. at 2285.
7
Id. at 2252–53.
8
Id. at 2267.
9
Id. at 400.
10
Id. at 401.
11
Id. at 425.
3
a. The Constitution as a Great Outline
12
McCulloch, 17 U.S. at 407 (emphasis added).
13
Outline, MERRIAM-WEBSTER, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/outline (last visited Aug. 8, 2023).
4
flexibility it needs to adapt to changing circumstances and act
effectively to promote the general welfare of the people.14
(2) interconnected,
14
Id. at 415.
15
Code, BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019).
16
Id. at 407.
17
See https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/system
5
(4) as an integrated whole. A system typically is designed to
perform certain functions.
6
Fourth-never interpret the Constitution as a fixed legal code.
19
Id.
20
Id. at 418–19.
7
enumerated powers. So, if the restrictive term acts as a
limitation on implied powers, then it acts as a limitation on
each and every enumerated power in Section 8 as well.
8
IV. The Dobbs Deeply Rooted Test Subverts the
Integrated Constitution
21
U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1.
22
Id.
23
Id.
9
Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment grants Congress an
enumerated power to enforce Sections 1-4.
But the deeply rooted in 1868 test effectively gives states the
power to check their own power. To determine if the Due
Process Clause checks states from exercising its police power,
Alito’s test gives states the authority to determine if state
power should be checked.
In effect, Alito’s test gives back to the states the power that
Fourteenth Amendment took away from them—the plenary
police power to enact laws restricting liberty.
24
Id.
25
Calabresi & Vickery, supra note 144, at 1299, 1323.
10
Under equal protection suspect class doctrine, laws that
discriminate against a suspect class are presumed to be
unconstitutional and subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. 26
Suspect classes are politically vulnerable groups subject to
prejudice who need special judicial protection from the
majoritarian political process.
11
the 19th century flowed from a deeply sexist, paternalistic
attitude.32
On the other hand, the Dobbs Court used the deeply rooted
history of laws restricting women’s reproductive autonomy to
protect state power under the Due Process Clause. Virtually
the same history was used to justify opposing outcomes.
32
Id. at 684.
33
Id. (emphasis added).
34
Id. at 6.
12
Nonsensical?
13
c. LOVING’s UNIFIED APPROACH consistent with
the Great Outline and the Integrated Constitution and
14th Amendment
35
Id. (emphasis added).
14
d. Alito’s Deeply Rooted Test is anti-
constitutional because it subverts federal supremacy.
36
U.S. CONST. art. VI, cl. 2.
37
See McCulloch, 17 U.S. at 406.
38
Id. at 431.
39
See id. at 432.
15
Given the power to tax the federal government, Marshall
reasoned that states could change “totally the character” 40 of
the Constitution as a whole by “transfer[ing] supremacy . . .
to the States.”41
40
Id.
41
Id. at 432.
42
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 173–74 (1803).
16
In effect, Alito has delegated or outsourced the Court’s power
of judicial review to a handful of states in 1868 in violation of
federal supremacy.
17
The Dobbs Deeply Rooted Test Turns the Due Process
Clause into a Legal Code
43
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 415 (1819).
18
In reducing the Due Process Clause into a legal code, Alito
either forgot or ignored Marshall’s command to “never forget,
that it is a constitution we are expounding.”44
44
Id. at 407 (emphasis added).
19
Implications
45
Dobbs, 142 S. Ct. at 2258.
46
Id.
20
retrospectively as the central rationale for Dobbs while
jettisoning Alito’s history test.
21
5. A Note on Ratifier’s Intent
47
Thomas B. Colby & Peter J. Smith, Living Originalism, 59
DUKE L.J. 239, 250–52 (2009) (analyzing ratifier’s intent in order
to understand amendments and laws).
48
See generally 142 S. Ct. at 2246, 2248.
22
ratifiers’ intent, and it is based on the dubious assumption that
a person approves of all existing laws in the state.
49
Bryan H. Wildenthal, The Fourteenth Amendment and The Bill
of Rights: Nationalizing the Bill of Rights: Scholarship and
Commentary on the Fourteenth Amendment in 1867-1873, 18 J.
CONTEMP. LEGAL ISSUES 153, 191, 286 (2009) (discussing the
repeal of state laws after the privileges and immunities clause was
enacted).
50
John Harrison, Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities
Clause, 101 YALE L.J. 1385, 1388–89, 1396 (1992)
(demonstrating how the Fourteenth Amendment affected the Black
Codes).
23
d. The Dobbs Deeply Rooted Method Conflicts
with the Fifteenth and Nineteenth
Amendments
51
U.S. CONST. amend. XV, § 1.
52
U.S. CONST. amend. XIX, § 1.
24
with the Fourteenth Amendment itself. It is inconsistent to
use the laws enacted by state political processes that excluded
women and African Americans to determine their
constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
25