Dov Fox has an interesting new piece up at HuffPo examining the constitutionality of the abortion restrictions just enacted in North Dakota:
As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in the same-sex marriage cases, North Dakota enacted three of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. Two of them are unlike any ever considered by U.S. courts.
One bans abortion wholesale after a fetal heartbeat is “detectable” (as early as six weeks into a pregnancy), unless termination would save the woman’s life. The other law forbids any abortion that’s sought on the basis of fetal sex or genetic anomaly, even fatal ones.
Both laws should be struck down as unconstitutional. But the selective abortion ban presents new legal questions for supporters of reproductive rights. Indeed, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade declined to insist that a woman “is entitled to terminate her pregnancy . . . for whatever reason she alone chooses.”
