Hadley Arkes

Scenes from a dinner in Washington ten years ago: Irving Kristol: “What was in the Second Amendment, again?” Paul Cantor: “Irving, you don’t remember? You wrote it.”There has often been a faint recollection of the Second Amendment, because it had rarely been before the courts. The rights . . . . Continue Reading »

For reasons quite plausible, even to people on the pro-life side, Rudolph Giuliani persists in standing well ahead of the pack of the Republican candidates for president. He has sounded the traditional Republican themes: preserving the Bush tax cuts, seeking free-market solutions to problems such as . . . . Continue Reading »

Within the camp of conservatives, the most cautious opponents of Roe v. Wade have stopped well short of arguing that the protections of the Constitution may actually extend to cover those "persons" in the womb. The conservative lawyers have been content to argue that the Constitution . . . . Continue Reading »

Only a day after the election, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on Gonzales v. Carhart , the case testing the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. On this argument”and this case”much will hinge. If the Supreme Court sustains the federal bill, the decision would mark, in effect, . . . . Continue Reading »

In the forthcoming January issue of First Things , I have an analysis of the oral arguments the Supreme Court heard on November 8 in Gonzales v. Carhart , the case testing the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. But perhaps it is also worth mentioning, here on the First Things website, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Both sides in the culture war over abortion have been readying themselves for the decision of the Supreme Court this fall on partial-birth abortion. Both sides expect a decision portentous and astounding”for people on both sides seriously expect the Court will use its decision to overturn Roe . . . . Continue Reading »

On Privacy [Remarks at the National Press Club, March 1, 2006] In the run-up to the hearings on Sam Alito, a reporter called from a paper in Sacramento to ask whether the pro-lifers were disturbed that both John Roberts and Sam Alito had accepted a constitutional right to privacy. I explained that . . . . Continue Reading »

O ut of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety (Henry IV, Part 1). The sense of relief, felt so deeply in the pro-life community on November 3, 2004, seems to have drifted away in the weeks and months since the presidential election. It is already easy to forget how great a threat the . . . . Continue Reading »

That redoubtable crew, the writers who brought forth the symposium “ The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics” (FT, November 1996) , have apparently contributed to our raging economy. For the symposium has led to further rounds of meetings and essays, and now, We the People: . . . . Continue Reading »

There was some puzzlement among John Stuart Mill’s contemporaries that he should publish his tract On Liberty, with its deep concern for the tyranny of public opinion, when the press in England was the freest in the world and the public life of the country was vibrant with controversy in politics . . . . Continue Reading »