abortion – Opinions

Sept. 5, Carliss Chatman, law professor at Dedman School of Law, SMU Dallas, for a piece pointing out how the Texas ban on the abortion pill could have a negative impact on life-saving telemedicine healthcare channels and prescription delivery. Published in The Hill under the heading How the Texas ban on mifepristone could jeopardize telemedicine for everyone: http://tinyurl.com/2ntve4j4

Telemedicine’s expansion during the pandemic minimized exposure and addressed the problem of health care deserts.

Roughly 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas and too often must travel long distances to receive health care. The National Rural Health Association reports the “patient-to-primary care physician ratio in rural areas is only 39.8 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to 53.3 physicians per 100,000 in urban areas.” But during the pandemic, technology, including telephone and video, bridged the care gap, allowing patients to receive critical treatment and prescriptions.

Continue reading “How the Texas ban on mifepristone could jeopardize telemedicine for everyone”

Dec. 4, Anthony Colangelo, Professor of Law at the SMU Dallas Dedman School of Law, for a commentary encouraging U.S. Supreme Court justices to consider more than the ‘absolutes’ regarding the debate about abortion as they discuss a Mississippi law. Published in the Washington Examiner under the heading: The Supreme Court should think differently about abortion: https://washex.am/3osF47h

The Supreme Court has taken up the issue of abortion, kicking off yet another round in the abortion debate in this country. The debate centers on the existence of certain rights that each side respectively claims permit abortion on the one hand and prohibit it on the other: namely, a woman’s right to privacy and a fetus’s right to life. Unfortunately, the debate is typically and simplistically cast in terms of absolutes: An absolute right to privacy overrides all other contradictory interests; similarly, an absolute right to life overrides all other contradictory interests.

Indeed, each side goes even further and disputes the very existence of the countervailing right. Conservatives argue that a right to privacy simply does not exist because it appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution, and liberals argue that a right to life simply does not encompass a fetus as a constitutionally cognizable person.

Continue reading “The Supreme Court should think differently about abortion”