The State Constitutional Law Project
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We have underwritten a systematic, comprehensive and in-depth study by our special counsel Paul Linton of the constitutional law relating to abortion rights in all fifty (50) states. The reason? Simple enough. If Roe v. Wade were overruled today and abortion issues returned to the states, even if every state legislature promptly enacted a statute outlawing all abortions except those needed to save the mother's life, more than half the abortions performed in the U.S. would still be legal! That is because more than half the abortions performed annually in the U.S. are performed in states whose Supreme Courts have held that abortion is protected as a constitutional right under their state constitutions. Legislatures in those states would be powerless to prohibit abortion, and their right to regulate abortion would also be doubtful.
Pro-abortion organizations have been working hard in pursuit of a national strategy to persuade state courts to recognize abortion rights under state constitutions. Our state constitutional law project has been designed to combat that opposition strategy. Linton's research, due to be published as a book late in the summer of 2008, will not only describe the current abortion jurisprudence in each state, but it will also examine relevant constitutional provisions, canvass case law interpreting those provisions, and formulate principled legal arguments against recognition of abortion rights under each state constitution. This project will benefit state legislators, pro-life leaders and lobbyists, lawyers, academics, and most important, the state officials including Governors and Attorneys General, who are charged by law with the duty to defend pro-life legislation but often lack the time, resources, experience, and expertise to match wits with pro-abortion forces on an even playing field. Our state constitutional law project will help to even out that playing field.