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Bringing Natural Law Down to Earth

Hadley Arkes

This essay is a response to “Anchors Aweigh” (December 2023) by Marc O. DeGirolami.  Some of my friends were vexed on my behalf on account of Marc DeGirolami’s recent...

Is the Constitution “Neutral” on Nature?

Hadley Arkes

The Wall Street Journal recently posted an article about a growing concern that there are not enough donations of sperm to meet rising demand. It was reported that in...

The Puzzle of 303 Creative

Hadley Arkes

3o3 Creative LLC v. Elenis has all the marks of a Masterpiece Cakeshop redux: From the same state of Colorado, with the same Civil Rights Commission, applying the same statute,...

The End of the Beginning of the End of Abortion

Hadley Arkes

The decision today in the Dobbs case, long awaited from the Court, can be appreciated—and savored—as a resounding first step. To rephrase Churchill’s line, we might say that we...

On Overruling Roe

Hadley Arkes

It is very much in the air now, with a deep hope on one side and a grim resignation on the other, that the holding in Roe v. Wade...

Takeaways from Oral Argument in Dobbs

Hadley Arkes

The oral argument yesterday morning in the Dobbs case on abortion was not exactly a moment to celebrate for either side. One side, we might say, was “morally challenged”...

What Hath Gorsuch Wrought?

Hadley Arkes

Do not believe it.” Those were the now-famous words of Justice Scalia in 2003, when the Supreme Court struck down the laws on sodomy in Texas, and Justice Anthony...

Conservative Jurisprudence Without Truth

Hadley Arkes

When the helicopters lifted off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, Gerry Ford commandeered time on television to tell the country, “This is no time for recriminations.”...

A Morally Empty Jurisprudence

Hadley Arkes

Conservatives were bracing for the defection of Justice Gorsuch on the cases dealing with the “transgendered” and “sexual orientation.” But even the anticipation of the jolt did not diminish...

Backing into Relativism

Hadley Arkes

We have just come through a year with the Supreme Court in which the defenders of religious freedom racked up a string of famous victories. Famous, at least, to...

The Moral Turn

Hadley Arkes

For some conservatives, bracing themselves on the night of the election, the evening offered nothing less than a miracle unfolding. But that sense of things was even more pronounced...

Recasting Religious Freedom

Hadley Arkes

Few among us concerned for the defense of religious freedom can doubt that these have become dark times indeed. Most recently, arguments have been brought before the Supreme Court—there...

Natural Rights Trump Obamacare, or Should

Hadley Arkes

Past the politics of Obamacare”the tawdry buying of votes, the spectacle of representatives in a republic passing into law bills of two thousand-plus pages they had never been able...

Vast Dangers in a Small Place

Hadley Arkes

In ordinary times, or in earlier days, when the judges were more clear-headed, the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez would have been, as they say, a “slam...

Empathy & Apathy

Hadley Arkes

During the presidential campaign Barack Obama declared, with no inadvertence, that among the furnishings of mind he would seek in an appointment to the Supreme Court is a keen...