Is there a power of personal coercion in the Constitution?
I was, frankly, shocked at the line of questioning in Dobbs from Justice Amy Coney Barrett. I am aware that she previously declined to hear a medical freedom case brought before the Court and has ruled against such cases in her previous appointments. These actions suggest to me a faulty understanding of the powers reserved to the Federal government under the Constitution. There is a wrong way to decide to overturn Roe, a way that inserts dangerous language into our jurisprudence, and that is to concede that natural processes such as pregnancy or natural states such as one's health can be "burdened" by the government -- that protecting the unborn from assault is an infringement on the bodily integrity of the woman.
As Hadley Arkes argued in First Things (I link in my article), our conservative judges need to be more confident in their moral reasoning.
I lay out my thoughts here: