Email, Michael Paulsen, University chair & professor of law, The University of St. Thomas, Oct. 7, 2016

From: Selby, Gardner

Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2016 6:18:26 PM

To: Paulsen, Michael S.

Subject: Texas newspaper, urgent inquiry for a fact check

Good evening. I write with urgency as we fact-check this recent claim by Sen. Cruz of Texas: Hillary Clinton “supports unlimited abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, including partial birth abortion, with taxpayer funding.”

Responding to us, Sen. Cruz’s office noted your 2003 article stating, in part, that it’s “clear to all today that Roe, in tandem with Doe v. Bolton, in fact created a regime of abortion-on-demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason agreed to by the mother and abortionist.”

It looks to me like there’s not universal agreement that those decisions resulted in abortion “on demand.” Since then too, there have been further rulings, including in the Casey case, 1992. I am writing you now to ask, for our story, if it’s your sense still that court rulings and laws mean the U.S. has abortion on demand. Why or why not?

Anything else come to mind?

I hope to complete our fact check soon.

Thanks,

G.

8:51 a.m.

Oct. 7, 2016

The Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence in effect creates a regime of abortion on demand.  Abortion may be had, for essentially any reason, throughout all nine months of pregnancy, up to the point of birth.  Some people are not well informed on this -- believing, wrongly, that abortion can be restricted or prohibited in the last three months of pregnancy (or at the point of viability) -- but the fact remains that abortion nonetheless remains a "right" (under the Court's jurisprudence) even after the child could live outside the womb, for reasons of the woman's "health" and that "health" is defined strangely to include any physical, medical, emotional, psychological, or family reason a woman might evoke.  The breadth of the "health" exception/loophole is stunning, and it surprises some uninformed people (or those who are deceived by the Court's labels).  It was first pronounced in Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, but has been carried forward in the Court's subsequent abortion decisions, up to last year.

Michael Stokes Paulsen

University Chair & Professor of Law

The University of St. Thomas