The majority opinion in the 1992 Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade, begins with this memorable line: “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.” On my reading, the authors of the opinion—Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter—were attempting, through a bizarre lyrical anthropomorphization, to convey the idea that an individual’s rights suffer when the laws that are intended to secure and protect them are vague, unclear, or subject to change. In other words, liberty does not flourish—and one cannot really be said to have it—when it is an open question whether they’ll be able to rely on these rights when they need them most.
A Jurisprudence of Doubt
A Jurisprudence of Doubt
A Jurisprudence of Doubt
The majority opinion in the 1992 Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade, begins with this memorable line: “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.” On my reading, the authors of the opinion—Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter—were attempting, through a bizarre lyrical anthropomorphization, to convey the idea that an individual’s rights suffer when the laws that are intended to secure and protect them are vague, unclear, or subject to change. In other words, liberty does not flourish—and one cannot really be said to have it—when it is an open question whether they’ll be able to rely on these rights when they need them most.