Review Questions from Chapter 8 and 9

Use Chapter 8 to help you answer these questions:

1.   Compare and contrast Michael H. v. Gerald D.(Chapter 6) with Lehr v. Robertson and J.J.J. (this chapter). Which aspects of these cases, if any, might guide us to a consistent approach to paternal rights? In what ways, if any, do these cases illustrate unequal and incongruent applications of legal principles? How might any inconsistencies be attributable to factors outside of the law? For example, does the year of the case, the underlying facts, or the details of the particular state’s law become a dominant element in the judicial assessment of paternal rights?

2.   The law in J.J.J.was subject to multiple interpretations. What might support the argument that an ambiguous law is advantageous in the field of family law? If the legislature wanted to minimize the law’s ambiguity, how might they rewrite the law to protect the father? To protect the child? In what ways, if any, do these interests either overlap or diverge?

3. In the Kirchnerand Schmidtcases, the fathers incurred enormous legal delays before they finally gained custody of their children. In what ways, if any, are such bureaucratic delays justified? Why might it have been better, or not, to transfer a child to his or her biological parent while the adoption case proceeded through the court system?

Use Chapter 9 to help you answer these questions:

1. State legislatures, as well as Congress, continue to write laws that regulate abortion. Given the Supreme Court’s stance that the right to terminate a pregnancy is protected from undue burdens pre-viability, many of these laws focus on abortion facilities, abortion doctors, informed consent, consent for minors, and late-term abortions. In his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey,Justice Rehnquist suggests that the issue of abortion should be decided in each state by majority rule. If the Court were to overturn its prior decisions and return the abortion issue fully to the democratic processes of legislatures, what impact might this have on national and state politics?

2. The label for and the location of the constitutional right examined in this chapter have changed over the last 40 years. What considerations might affect our decisions to call this right “privacy,” “liberty,” or “autonomy?” Does the nature or the extent of the right change if we ground it in (a) a variety of constitutional provisions and their penumbras, (b) the Ninth Amendment, or (c) the Due Process Clauses?

3.   The principle of stare decisisserves five main goals. Adhering to legal precedent allows a court to better present a public image of stability, reliability, efficiency, equality, and overall justice. The Court affirmatively rejected stare decisiswhen it overruled Bowersand invalidated the sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas.The Court kept Roe’scentral holding of a woman’s right to choose an abortion but substantially changed its guidance on the framework for abortion rights in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.In what ways did the Court enhance or damage its reputation as a reliable and dependable arbiter of the law when it changed course in these important constitutional law cases?