Hadley Arkes is a political philosopher and legal scholar, the Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College. A prominent pro-life intellectual, he is known as the architect of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. His contributions to The Weekly Standard focused on constitutional law, abortion policy, and the intersection of law and morality.
June, for conservatives, has been of late the “cruelest month” at the Supreme Court, as the decisions finally roll forth. Many expect—with a combination of apprehension and resignation—that in the critical case of Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy will furnish the fifth vote for…
It must be one of those inversions of this age of the media that the issues raised by the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia have faded into the background, while the main attention has been drawn to the screening of this story by the liberal media. But even more curious has been screening…
A FEDERAL DISTRICT JUDGE IN Maryland has jolted the local liberal establishment in Montgomery County by blocking a pilot program in sex education. The program was designed to sweep away the "myths"--the lingering moral inhibitions and retrograde theological teachings--that apparently feed…
THE BORN-ALIVE INFANTS Protection Act is an attempted "modest first step" on abortion, a measure that would simply protect a child who survives an abortion. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 380-15 in September 2000. Last June, it was approved 98-0 in the Senate, when it was introduced by…
IT IS RARE THAT U.S. SENATORS fall apart on the floor of the Senate under questioning from one of their colleagues, but Senator Barbara Boxer did just that during the October 20 debate on partial-birth abortions, and there was nothing random in the spectacle. Her frustration sprang from the flaws…