Sex Equality Arguments for Reproductive Rights: Their Critical Basis and Evolving Constitutional Expression

Abstract

What is at stake in a sex equality approach to reproductive rights? At first glance, equality arguments would seem to entail a shift in constitutional authority for reproductive rights—for example, from the Due Process to Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—but as the articles of this Symposium richly illustrate, equality arguments for reproductive rights need not take this legal form. In introducing this Symposium, I identify a sex equality standpoint on reproductive rights that can be, and is, expressed in a variety of constitutional and regulatory frameworks.