Summary of From Choice to Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights

The author Robin West, explains the main argument in the abstract stating that the essay argues that the
right to abortion constitutionalized in the case of Roe v. Wade is at variance with a capacious and broader
understanding of the demands of reproductive justice. The essay also explores the possibility of creating
the right to legal abortion via political terms rather than constitutional adjudication in the sense that there
would not be a possibility of overruling in a legislation as compared to constitutional adjudications.
The author organizes the essay into three parts. The first part asks a rhetorical question as to why the case
of Roe v. Wade lacks pro-choice criticism and critical commentary from pro-choice scholars on both the
right to abortion and the role of courts in causing harms to the broader cause of reproductive justice
because of this.
The second part of the essay argues the presence of unaccounted moral and political costs of the judicially
created, individualist and negative right to an abortion that have not been taken into account. The author
briefs about three such costs, (i) legitimation costs (ii) democratic costs (iii) aspirational costs.
The third part of the essay looks for opportunities and prospects for promoting reproductive justice which
includes legal, moral, political and rhetorical rights which the pro-choice community might have lost
because of the authority of Supreme court in abortion debate and their focus on abortion rights.
1. A missing critical Jurisprudence
The author begins the first part by questioning the lack of critical commentary on the case of Roe v. Wade
from pro-choice scholars and its variants. He points out how this is odder than it seems as the liberal
adjudicated victories of the Warren and Burger courts with the exception of the case of Roe v. Wade
received massive amount of critical commentary from theorists professing to speak on the interests of the
victorious parties and the communities they represented.
The author gives the examples of landmark cases which received criticisms and commentaries from the
scholars of the respective field and its impact and how the case of Roe v. Wade lacks this very important
aspect.
In the case Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark judgement in US where the court ruled that US
state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, generated such massive
criticisms eventually creating an entirely scholarly movement of the critical race theory.
Similarly, in the case of Miranda v. Arizona, another landmark judgement where the Supreme court ruled
that an arrested individual is entitled to rights against self-discrimination and to an attorney under the 5th
and 6th Amendments of the Constitution of United States, brought in a mixed response of worry as well as
celebration among the advocates with regards to the criminal defendants.
The case of Lawrence v. Texas is another landmark judgement where the Supreme court of the United
States invalidated sodomy law across United States, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every
territory of United States, which prompted plenty of recognition and accolades for the judgement but also
brought in its fair share of criticism from equality-minded legal scholars.
The author points out the lack of friendly critique in the case of Roe v. Wade unlike the previously
mentioned examples of Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, Lawrence v. Texas. He puts
forward three main reasons for this critical restraint, however none of them giving a compelling
justification.
The first reason the author gives is the widespread belief among the pro-choice believers on the opinion’s
relative vulnerability1 which plays a crucial role in the lack of criticism in the case of Roe v. Wade. The
author points out the fundamental difference between the other landmark cases mentioned before to the
case of Roe, the fact that Roe seems to be in everlasting and great danger of being overturned. This alone
deters the criticism of those who politically support legal abortion.
The author points out an important fact as to how the case of Roe has always been an agenda in
presidential campaign. The possibility that the case might be overturned seems perpetual considering the
fact that beliefs of the ruling party change every time there is an election which in return influences the
fate of the judgement in the case of Roe.
The second reason pointed out by the author is the very tangible outcome in the case of Roe compared to
any other landmark case in history. For example, the case of Brown v. Board of Education ended de jure
segregation of the schools. However, the enforceability of the judgement seemed to be ineffective as de
facto segregation still continued making no difference in the functioning of the society.
The author points out how there is so much scope for criticism in these cases, when one focuses on what
was promised and the enforceability and gains occurred as a result of it.
Comparing the same in the case of Roe v. Wade, it is noticeable how enormous the effect of the
enforceability of the judgement is. In contrast to the above-mentioned cases, Roe was not by any means
an empty victory.
The judgement of Roe sent a clear-cut message to the girls, women and the larger society that women’s
reproductive rights henceforth would be governed by a regime of choice as it should be, where the choice
here does not include fate, accident, biology or men.
It is notable how the effect of this one decision, with respect to autonomy and the broadened options for
women and girls as a result of this felt to be massive. With the advantage of a safe and legal abortion,
women can avoid life and health threatening pregnancies and also makes them capable of planning a
major sequence in their life, which in turn increases their chances of succeeding drastically.
Without the control upon their own autonomy, dangerous and injurious pregnancies in an individual's life
influences their completion of education, from high school to graduation limiting their scope for
accomplishment and success.
This drastic change that is brought in just from the enforceability of Roe v. Wade is what makes it
different compared to the rest of the cases, restricting its scope for criticism.
The last reason brought in by the author for the lack of pro-choice criticism is that the fact that Roe got so
much exactly right, which is both appreciated and understood by the pro-choice community. Hence,
criticism at this point would look deliberate.
The author points out how it may be simply true that if women were really considered to be equal
citizens, they must have a right to legal abortion and how it may be true that an equal citizen is exactly
what a constitution requires.
Eileen Mcdonagh’s argument is mentioned which is that if abortions are to be considered criminal,
women but never men, are required to donate their body parts for a substantial period of their adult life for

1 Page 1400, From Choice to Reproductive Justice: De-constitutionalizing Abortion Rights by Robin West
the purpose of nurturing and hosting another life, which they are required to do regardless of their
consent.
If equal citizenship is really the goal of the constitution, then women must have the right to legal abortion
in order to achieve this.
However, none of the three reasons, the vulnerable state of Roe and the consequences arising from it, the
impact of its enforceability, or the partial truth it expresses justifies the lack of critical inquiry by pro-
choice scholars in the case of Roe.
The author explains how with respect to both the vulnerable state of Roe and its effectiveness, the main
goal of pro-choice movement should be women’s access to safe and legal abortions and not the preserving
of a right that seems to be increasingly futile.
Focusing completely on preserving the right and on the existence of danger that Roe could be overturned,
the proper enforceability of the right by ensuring access to legal abortion is forgotten, which is leading the
pro-choice community into a dangerous path.
Preserving the right without its implications makes all of the efforts put into preserving the right in the
first place futile.
The author points out how the actual threat with regards to safe and legal abortions is not the overturning
of Roe itself, but that abortions may become less and less available as a result of legislative and political
decisions not being under the authority of the Supreme court.
Hence, focusing on the court and the narrow constitutional right it has created as a medium to safe
abortions is nothing but counterproductive.
The author states how considering legal abortion to be necessary to fulfill women’s equal rights, it should
by no means be a product of judicially created individualized constitutionalized right, rather political
persuasion is the best way to achieve it.
Two reasons are given supporting this stance, one emphasizing that the judgement of the court in the case
of Roe v. Wade is not a right to legal abortion but is a negative right to criminalization of abortion in
some circumstances.
The author points out how in order to actually support women’s equality, right to legal abortion must
mean much more than being free of moralistic legislations interfering the choices of women, but should
also grant access to the right being enforced.
The state must guarantee a right to access to an abortion by any women who needs one, no matter if she
can afford it or not, where if she can’t the state must be required to provide considerable support.
The second reason given by the author is that the right of abortion might be better secured through
political, popular or legislative constitutionalism rather than being dependent on constitutional
adjudication.
The author explains this point further how the right to abortion would be much more secured as a part of
our constitution, achieved through political and legislative victories rather than constitutional
adjudication.
Neither the vulnerability nor the efficacy of Roe, is a good reason not to engage in criticism. There are
consequences due to the lack of criticism as well. The author argues that the lack of such critique has
dulled to such an extent that the rhetoric of adjudicated abortion rights may have weakened reproductive
justice.
The author explains three ways through which pro-life community ensures that pregnancies are reduced,
where none of them include the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The first strategy they implement in order to
decrease the number of pregnancies is by passing restrictions the court would uphold even when Roe is
implemented.
The second one includes intimidating abortion clinics and hospitals and shaming women who opt for
abortion. The third strategy includes reducing the long-range cost of pregnancy by bringing in more
political and communitarian support for motherhood especially poor women.
2. Critique
The author points out how there are three major costs of the rights created in the case of Roe v. Wade
which seems to be not valued by the pro-choice community. All of these are suggested by various
critiques of negative rights, which are, (i) choice-based arguments for abortion rights which legitimately
considers injustice both in women’s reproductive rights and elsewhere. (ii) The court’s active role in
making aggravating antidemocratic features of the US constitution with regards to women’s detriment.
(iii) The arguments brought up now do not do justice aspirational goals of women’s movement’s early
arguments that were present in the beginning.
Briefly looking at the costs,
(i) Legitimation:
Despite having many meanings in critical legal scholarship, the term has two particular meanings that are
relevant to abortion rights. The first one concerning the legitimating consequences of a legal change and
the second one being the legitimating consequences of individual’s choice. These two are deeply
intertwined in the case of abortion.
By the first meaning, the author explains how apparent gains that is brought in through legal changes
sometimes become counterproductive and offset by legitimation costs of the same legal breakthrough.
That is a conceded legal change often legitimates broader injustice within the scope of the legal
breakthrough from critique. For example, the de jure segregation de-constitutionalized in the case of
Brown, in turn brought in de facto segregation within the system because of it.
At some point, the legitimation costs overweigh the effect of the breakthrough itself.
The second meaning of legitimation is concerned with nature and the role of consent and the impact of
this consent from a specific individual to the perceived justice to which the consent is given. The act of
consent insulates the object of consent even arising from criticism which is much less of a legal challenge.
The author points out the example of consent with terms to a contract where it insulates the fairness of the
terms of that contract from both public scrutiny and legal attack. The idea here being that if the contract is
signed consensually by both the parties, it cannot possibly be unfair to either of them no matter how
harmful it may seem.
The author explains how the concept of consent purifies that to which the consent is given, thereby
protecting it from legal challenges as well as political critique.
The degree to which a consensual change is perceived as such is the degree to which it has been unduly
legitimated by the same consent preceding it.
The author asks the rhetorical question of whether these worries about legitimating effects of legal change
and individual consent relevant in the case of Roe v. Wade. He brings in Catharine Mckinnon’s
arguments that pointed to two important legitimating effects of that decision.
The first argument put forward is that constitutionalizing the right to terminate a pregnancy legitimates
that the sex which brought in the pregnancy might be not fully consensual by both the parties. This in
return shifts the focus away from the social and sexual imbalances that result in unwanted pregnancies to
the unwanted pregnancy itself and instead suggests that the appropriate social and individual response to
unwanted and non-consensual sex is the protect the right of ending the pregnancy.
This has the scope of minimizing the social costs of sexual inequality rather than sexual inequality in
itself.
The second argument put forward by Mackinnon is that the privacy rationale in the case of Roe v. Wade
might have destructive effect of further protecting the already overly privatized world of intimate
relations.
The author shares his opinion that these arguments were left unanswered by the feminist supporters in the
case of Roe. He explains how the more important danger he wishes to highlight is that the individual right
to terminate a pregnancy might have the effect of not only normalizing and legitimating coercive sex
which was the main reason for the unwanted pregnancy but also legitimating the inequal social welfare
net and the excessive economic burdens that are placed on poor men and women who decide to parent.
It is pointed out how this brings in the belief that only people who can afford to have children must be
allowed to do so and that poor people must be aware of their choice to raise a child and the economic
burdens that come along with it before doing so.
The author states how if parenting is really a choice, which is a status entered freely it might as well be a
very long and binding contract whose expense is not a source of injustice or even worry as long as the
choice is made knowingly.
Hence, constitutionalizing this right to choose simultaneously legitimates both, the lack of public support
given to parents for fulfilling their career obligations.
The author points out how the choice rhetoric of Roe devalues the arguments for development of
‘caregiver rights’. The right to an abortion gives a woman not to be a caregiver but at the cost of but
rhetorically making the difficulties of caregiving harder to publicly share if she ever opts for it.
The author brings in a parallel between how an economically stable woman would handle this compared
to a financially unstable woman. Privileged women can afford to take care of their child by either
appointing a caregiver or even take a break from their careers and raise the child. The same cannot be
seen in the case of financially unstable women as they are made to choose between raising a child and
being economically stable.
The author questions if we are truly comfortable in a world where only rich people can afford to parent a
child. The author concludes the header by explaining how the sheer cruelty of this is what the legitimating
rhetoric of choice and of individuals right to privacy and liberty all mask.
(ii) Democracy:
The author introduces this header by mentioning how in the past thirty years, a growing body of
scholarship from critical legal scholars have denounced the political left’s heavy reliance on court on
courts, rights and constitutional laws as medium for progressive victories which would be better secured
through ordinary politics.
Several themes have emerged from this, out of which three of them have relevance to Roe v. Wade
according to the author. He briefs about each of these concerns and the ways in which Roe is exemplary
to them.
The first concerns the logic of counter majoritarian, constitutional rights2. The author explains how
critical scholars have argues for well over a quarter century as to how while constitutional rights in this
country indeed have served the interests of minorities as it claims to, it has primarily been the interests,
privileges and entitlements of property owners in either to retain their wealth or to buy and sell assets on
open market for profit, against the wishes of those who would challenge them.
The author points out how with the arrival of progressive right-based movements in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, the historical alignment of rights and privileges have been mixed. The rights which
are enforced for progressive causes, claiming to benefit the minority, tend to protect the preexisting
property entitlements to that which is owned by discrediting majoritarian and political deliberation and
reforms which it would take to upend them.
The second concern is that critical scholars argue forcefully that court-generated rights tend to reinforce
destructive distinctions between the public and private realms of social life, largely because of its
insistence that any form of injustice only arises from state and the actions of state but none from private
actors of any sort.
The only relief which judicially discovered rights give is a way to ward off overly intrusive state
involvement in our private lives. The author mentions two problems arising as a result of this, the first
problem being that the court-generated rights protect rather than stand as a challenge to forms of
oppression which distinctly arise from private actors such as unfair employment, patriarchal privileges or
private sphere racism which are all caused by private actors.
The second and less-noted problem pointed out by the author is the valorization of the private realm
comes at the cost of degradation of the public.
The third cost of court-generated rights identified by the critics stem from the methods of reasonings the
courts employ. The author explains how progressive victories secured through adjudication rather than
politics must at least aim to consistent with the past practices, meshing more or less seamlessly with the
preexisting precedents, decisions and institutional arrangements. This in turn makes right-based victories
much more conservative compared to politically achieved rights.
The author points out how rights generated by courts can also be abandoned by courts. These progressive
critiques of judicially generated rights all suggest limits to the progressive potential of Roe v. Wade.
The author compares each of the argument put forward by the critics supporting this stance to the case of
Roe essentially proving the above statement.

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The first complains from the critics was that constitutional rights in spite of their progressive potential,
have always tended to protect individuals’ commodifications’ rights with respect to contracts and proerty
rather than to serve the needs of the people. The right generated in the case of Roe is no exception to this.
The author explains how the right created by Roe whether in terms of right to privacy or liberty, quickly
devolved into nothing but a bare negative contract right to merely buy a particular medical service
legally- abortion.
The second complain being of the “public-private” distinction by the rights critics. The ruling has focused
its attention on the destructive intermeddling of the state in women’s lives rather than the private sphere
appropriation caused by male aggression or the appropriation of women’s reproductive and parenting
labor in that sphere.
As already mentioned, the argument of Mackinnon explains how the pro-choice community ran the risk
that it would further confuse both the fact and nature of private sphere and the subordination that occurs
within it with a constitutionally protected veil of applauded privacy.
The third concern just as predicted by legal scholars, the right has been proven to be both relatively
regressive and seemingly unstable. The case of Roe being conceived as a “right” so as to withstand the
impulse of hostile political opinions that would upset it, still seemingly hangs by a legal thread, the
probability of the court broadening, upholding or overruling it always exists.
The author however points out an additional and less appreciated cost to democracy of conceptualizing
legal abortions as a judicially generated right that the right critics never touched on but is worth
addressing. When the courts claim privileged and even monopolistic access to the language of moral
principle, reasoned discourse, and civil dialogue, it suggests a lesser, distasteful view of the politics it
thereby limits.3
The author explains how court-generated rights are often seen as the realm of bald power, forming
arbitrary preferences for unprincipled reasons. The court by contrast expresses itself in the language of
principle, reason, rationality, integrity, consistency with the past, and dispassionate concern for the future.
The court proves itself as the highest form of institution that keeps the civil conversation going in this
country. Therefore, any law which is expressed and generated through courts can be seen as the best and
highest form of politics.
The author explains how the progenies of Roe v. Wade and Roe are not responsible for the degradation of
politics but however does stand as an example for it. When the court comments on the interrelation
between right to privacy and abortion, it talks about the sanctity of marriage, right to life and personal
liberty, and what constituents an individual’s identity and of the importance of consistency, integrity, and
moral principle in decision-making and in our law.
In contrast to this, the arguments made by the commentators when speaking of this right and advocating
for abortion rights means in a public sphere could not be more different. When advocates talk about
abortion in the public sphere they never mention about a “jurisprudence of doubt” or the importance of
precedent of liberty, dignity, or even equality of liberty, dignity, or even equality.

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Rather, most of their arguments revolve around women’s bodies. They mention the health hazards and
dangers which many pregnancies pose to women, lives lost because of illegal abortions, shattered dreams
of girls and women and so on.
The author points out how the arguments made by both the sides in this debate could not be starker,
however, he mentions how it is beginning to narrow somewhat giving the example of Gonzales v. Carhart
which was a landmark decision of the US landmark decision of the US Supreme court which upheld the
partial—birth Abortion Act of 2003.
The author compares to how pro-life communities advocate the lives of unborn babies by pushing their
listeners to identify with the unborn and to open their sympathies and how the conservative legal critics in
the case of Roe v. Wade rarely speak on any of this.
Rather, they chose to speak on originalism of constitutional integrity, close reading of the texts, and the
lack of the word ‘privacy’ in the constitution. There is little to no talk either in the court or through
scholarly commentaries that is hostile to Roe about fetal life, unborn babies and even less about the
struggles faced by women with unwanted and dangerous pregnancies.
The author points out how the discussion is historical and constitutional, without even a little
identification with or sympathy for the plight of the murdered babies. The author explains how this gap in
the arguments of pro-life and pro-choice arguments are understandable as the issue facing the court is not
about the morality of abortion but the power of the state to criminalize it.
These contrasting modes of discussion around abortion have instigated the cognizance that the court
rather than the public square is the proper place for deciding the legality of abortion.
The author explains how politics even at its best is a mixture of passion and principles. Signs, pictures
and images evoking empathy despite being ingredients of mob mentality, are also essential components of
any movement that aims to broaden our moral compass. It is important that we think of either women or
fetal life as a part of us, where if we fail to do so, we will not legislate, as a people, to protect them.
Concluding the heading, the author states how adjudicating abortion rights may have dulled our capacities
and appreciation for impassioned, engaged politics and civil compromise and how the result has been a
stronger rather than weaker set of reproductive rights and liberties.
(iii) Aspirations:
The author introduces this heading by Roberto Unger’s argument that the thinking of what constitutes the
core of canonical common and constitutional law texts was truncated. The author explains how this
dynamic fits the case of abortion rights and the aspirational vision it was originally a part of so well.
He explains how the constitutional right to abort a fetus, and the right to be left alone on which it is built
is just as futile as it is in part because it represents such a shortened version of the aspirational feminist
vision of reproductive justice from which it was forged.
This influenced the way in which feminists perceived abortions. They sought it as a component of
women’s equality, heightened protection against rape, equal employment opportunities and inclusion of
women in the public spheres of politics and governance.
The advocacy for legal abortion was enforced largely because of the politics surrounding the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA) movement and then shifted to a different terrain of personal liberty. After this, it
became a tree of its own not rooted much around women’s equality but more around marital, medical and
sexual privacy.
It is clear with retrospection that this re-rooting strategy was also a representation for our understanding
of what an abortion right is and why we should have one. Abortion rights became a narrative authored
and controlled by the court rather than a part of a narrative of women’s rights authored, developed, and
controlled by feminists, progressives, or women’s rights devotees.
The author finds a common alignment of Roe with other cases which establish rights to kill or defensive
rights. The court in the case of Helen discovered that a right to own a handgun is desired not only by gun
enthusiasts and hunters, but also by citizens who worry that the state would not defend them against
aggressors in their home or elsewhere.
Perceiving the right to own a gun in this way, complements the Court’s refusal to grant a positive right to
a state’s protection against private violence. Similarly, we can understand that Roe as granting the right ot
kill a fetal life, has been made all the more desirable by virtue of the state’s refusal to create meaningful
systems of health and child care. A right to an abortion looks all the more desirable if one has no right to
assistance in dealing with the economic stresses of parenting.4
The author states how the only way to read Roe is as a part of an adjudicative, narrative movement toward
a robust conception of reproductive justice, which is ruled out by the right’s negativity. He explains the
actual requirement of reproductive justice which needs a state to provide a network of support the enitre
process of reproduction including, protection against rape and access to affordable and effective birth
control, healthcare, including but not limited to abortion services, prenatal care, support in childbirth and
postpartum, support for breastfeeding mothers, early childcare for infants and toddlers, income support
for parents who stay home to care for young babies, and high quality public education for school age
children.5
The court however is not equipped to mandate any of that and has repeated that it is not inclined even to
suggest that a citizen might have a right to a state that does so. The negative right which the court has
instead recognized, suggests something very different. All it does is to suggest at best is a right to
nonreproductive sex and at worst a right to end a pregnancy by killing of a fetus so as to free oneself from
the obligations of the burden of parenting. Either way, it can be clearly seen that women, parents, or
children are not the beneficiaries.
3. The opportunity costs of constitutionalized abortion rights
The author introduces this heading by stating how reproductive justice is a political and moral project
whereas the Court-created abortion right is a judicial and constitutional one. He asks the rhetorical
question of how the world might be different if the pro-choice community focused on reproductive justice
more, and a bit less about abortion right being constitutional.
This part outlines three costs: political, rhetorical, and moral.

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 A. Political Costs
Firstly, the author insists how a movement towards a version of broadened reproductive justice could be
able to prompt a fresh outlook at the pro-life movement.
The author explains how the notion that the only focus of pro-life argument is to overturn Roe and that
they are committed to the project of requiring women to carry pregnancies to term, primarily so as to
enforce restrictive and Victorian roles of motherhood, femininity is dated and is not applicable anymore
to a large extent.
A fair amount of prolife feminist scholarship focuses on increasing public support for parenting, for the
sake of both, its own sake, and as a means of minimizing the number of abortions.
The author points out how by putting legal abortions in the context of a reproductive justice agenda, pro-
choice advocates might find common cause with pro-life movements that responsibly seek greater justice
for pregnant women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term, working families, and struggling
mothers.
Pro-life and pro-choice movements have a common interest in reducing the incidence of abortion, both by
minimizing the number of unintended pregnancies and lowering the cost of mothering. Similarly, they
should also have a common interest in protecting the ordinary legal rights and interests of pregnant
women who complete their pregnancies—rights that also are threatened by a legal regime that generally
neglects the demands of reproductive justice.6
B. Rhetorical Costs
Turning our attention away the courts prompt a profitable return to pragmatism and away from principle
in the formulation of arguments for legal abortion. The author explains how there are clear pragmatic
reasons as to why the power to make this decision should rest with the pregnant woman or girl: She is the
one who is actually carrying the physical burden, she is the one who is faced with the decision to raise the
baby, she is the one who is required to bear the burden of motherhood all along her life and face all of its
impacts in her daily life. On the other hand, giving this power to husbands, fathers or medical boards is as
life altering and as life-shrinking as it currently is, will result in injuries, stunted lives, and some deaths.
This pragmatic explanation as to why women must have the power to make this decision must be
explained rather than focus on principled constitutional claims that purport to rest on timeless principle.
C. Moral Costs
Finally, the focus on abortion rights diverts to the moral argument as to whether abortion might reduce the
number of unwanted pregnancies women experience, whether they result in live births or not. The author
brings in two moral constraints on an individual’s sexual behavior that seems compelling.
The first one being that the pro-choice community is obligated to acknowledge the fact that opposite-sex
partners who do not intend to conceive have a compelling moral duty to use birth control. The author
points out how the right to use birth control has been under so much focus that the duty to use it has been
collectively ignored.

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Second, a powerful array of societal forces still pushes heterosexual women and girls to have sex that they
patently do not desire, some of which leads to unwanted pregnancies.7 Women conform to sex in order at
the cost of staying free of violence majority of the times. This in turn forms unwanted pregnancy where
again her body is used for the service of another rather than a part of an integrated self.
From this, the author argues that a girl or young woman owes a moral duty not just to herself but also to
her future self not to engage in sex she does not want, and a boy or man has a duty not to engage in sex
undesired by his partner.
The author brings out the need for campaigns conveying the message that while sex is good, un-
contracepted or unwanted sex is a moral wrong. He insists on a straightforward public relations campaign,
aimed at teenagers and young adults, that sought to convey both norms, that while wanted sex is a human
good, one has a duty to use contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancy, and a duty to say no to unwanted
sex could not hurt, and it might do a lot of good. It might also bring down the total number of unwanted
pregnancies in the world.
4. From Choice to Reproductive Justice:
The author introduces the final heading explaining how pro-choice policies from the beginning, should
have been generated by ordinary politics where they are respectful and reflects of a sex-friendly popular
morality, and expressed ultimately in ordinary law.
He explains how women need legal abortion not to ward off undue state interference, but in order to live
better and more integrated lives in their families and workplaces both, to live those better and more
integrated lives, they require both reproductive choice and better support for their caregiving obligations,
as do the men with whom they might partner.
Rather than principled demands for rights, legal abortions viewed as pragmatic needs for well led lives
better supports for childcare and legal abortion are both components of an as yet unrealized reproductive
justice.
The author points out how arguments for legal abortion in legislative and public arenas need not be made
in ways that limit the movement for reproductive justice to this most individualistic and self-abdicating
“right to an abortion”, they do not have to be short-lived.
Finally concluding, the author explains how a shift in focus away from courts to more democratic fora
might open the door to moral and political opportunities to which we have been blinded by the light of the
promises of a living Constitution.
It is important to note that both pro-life and pro-choice have substantial parts of both sides of these
movements have an interest in minimizing the demand for abortion through minimizing the cost of
mothering, enforcing and strengthening the rights of pregnant women, advocating the responsible use of
birth control, insisting upon sensible anti-rape policies, and discouraging unwanted sex.
The reproductive justice that might be achieved through these coalitions—that is, achieved through
ordinary modes of political persuasion—might prove more enduring than what we have garnered to date
from the Court.8

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