Roe v. Wade: Reflections After Thirty Years January 31st, 2003 Yale Law School, Room 127 127 Wall Street New Haven, Connecticut     A daylong series of events at Yale Law School on January 31 will commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which struck down state laws criminalizing abortion and recognized women's right to privacy in deciding whether or not to bear a child. Thirty years after the original opinion, the abortion right first recognized in Roe remains a major source of controversy in American society. "Roe v. Wade: Reflections After Thirty Years" will be held in Room 127, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is sponsored by Yale Law Women, a student organization, and is free and open to the public. At 1:30 p.m., nine of the country's most prominent constitutional scholars, led by Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School, will hold a mock Supreme Court session, in which they will rewrite Roe v. Wade, using only materials available as of January 22, 1973, when the original Roe decision was handed down. "The panelists will present their own opinions in Roe v. Wade, explaining how they believe the opinion should have been written, given what we now know about the subsequent history of the country and the development of American constitutional law," said Balkin. The opinions submitted on January 31 will be included in a book called What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said, to be published by NYU Press. Balkin previously gathered a group of constitutional scholars to rewrite the famous 1954 opinion in Brown v. Board of Education. The resulting book, entitled "What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Landmark Civil Rights Decision ," also published by NYU Press in 2001, served as the model for theRoe exercise. In addition to Balkin, the panel features Akhil Reed Amar, Southmayd Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Anita Allen-Castellitto, professor of law and philosophy, University of Pennsylvania; Michael Stokes Paulsen, Briggs and Morgan Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Jed Rubenfeld, Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Jeffrey Rosen, associate professor of law, George Washington University, and legal affairs editor, The New Republic; Reva Siegel, Nicholas de Katzenbach Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Mark V. Tushnet, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University; and Robin L. West, professor of law, Georgetown University. In a prelude to the afternoon panel, the 10:30 a.m. panel organized by Yale Law Women addresses the issue of where reproductive rights stand today, and discusses how to overcome challenges to those rights. The speakers on the panel, "Practitioners' Perspectives: Thirty Years Later, Where Are We Now?", are all Yale Law School graduates who have litigated reproductive rights cases and advocated for abortion rights on the national, state, and local levels. The speakers are: Priscilla Smith, director, domestic program, Center for Reproductive Law and Policy; Betsy Cavendish '88, legal director and general counsel, National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League; and Catherine Weiss '87, director, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.   Read an article about the Conference from @YLS Yale Law Women             © 2002 Jack M. Balkin All rights reserved. Home | Bibliography | Writings Online | Opeds | Syllabi and Exams | Conlaw.net | Brownvboard.com | Cultural Software | Infomation Society Project | E-mail |