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Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

British Trials In the EIghteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 11:12 AM PST

A new publication of interest:

Crime, Courtrooms and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850, Edited by David Lemmings, University of Adelaide, Australia, Ashgate, December 2012.  Via the blog ESCLH: European Society for Comparative Legal History.

More here at the Ashgate website.

Mapping the March of Same-Sex Marriage and Relationships

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 09:37 AM PST

Peter Nicolas, University of Washington School of Law, and Mike Strong (no affiliation given), have published The Geography of Love: Same-Sex Marriage & Relationship Recognition in America (The Story in Maps) Third Edition (2013) as a University of Washington School of Law Research Paper. Here is the abstract.

There is no question that the most prominent gay rights issue in the United States today is the right to marry. Yet accurate, objective information about same-sex marriage and relationship recognition in the United States is difficult to come by. In this book, Seattle-based authors Peter Nicolas & Mike Strong combine their respective training in law and geography to depict the history and current state of marriage and relationship recognition rights for same-sex couples in the United States in words...and in maps.
This publication begins with a detailed history of efforts to achieve marriage rights and other forms of relationship recognition (such as domestic partnerships and civil unions) for gay and lesbian Americans, from the first lawsuit filed in 1970 in Minnesota to the new marriage laws approved by voters in November, 2012 — and just about everything (judicial and legislative) in between.
Next, it provides detailed information on relationship recognition in the United States, including: which states permit same-sex couples to marry or to enter into other types of legal unions; the rules for entering into or terminating such relationships; a comparison of the rights that each state provides to same-sex couples; the extent to which same-sex relationships entered into in one state are recognized by other states; and which cities and counties have domestic partnership registries and equal benefits ordinances.
That is followed by a look at efforts to ban same-sex marriage at the ballot box, including: selected vote details by state and county; a closer look at where support for such efforts was weakest and strongest; and a comparison of the processes for amending state constitutions across the United States.
For those same-sex couples interested in getting married in one of the jurisdictions that permits same-sex couples to marry, the book features a table that provides detailed information about the prerequisites for getting married, including: the marriage license fee; minimum age and blood test requirements; whether non-residents are permitted to marry; and the waiting period, if any, between applying for a license and getting married.
The third edition is completely up-to-date, and provides extensive coverage of the votes in November 2012 legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington.
Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 

Women's History, Law, Politics, and Abortion Rhetoric

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 09:33 AM PST

Tracy A. Thomas, University of Akron School of Law, has published Misappropriating Women's History in the Law and Politics of Abortion at 36 Seattle University Law Review 1 (2012). Here is the abstract.

Over the past twenty years, prolife advocates have sought to control the political and legal narrative of abortion by misappropriating women's history. They claim that "[w]ithout known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms." Conservatives, led by the lobbying group Feminists for Life, have used historical feminist icons like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul, to support their anti-abortion advocacy. Federal anti-abortion legislation has been named after these feminist heroines, amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court proffer evidence that these women were outspokenly against abortion, and political forums for college students popularize the notion that feminists historically opposed abortion. The need to create a history of anti-abortion feminists seems important today because abortion has come to be equated with women's rights. The appeal to historical figures in the abortion debate is powerful because it utilizes the gravitas of feminist heroines to challenge the existing legal and political assumption that abortion is a cornerstone of sex equality.
This political narrative, however, misconstrues the historical evidence. It invents rather than describes history, blatantly ignoring the text, context, and spirit of the work of the women it appropriates. This paper tests the veracity of the claims of a feminist history against abortion by focusing on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "the brilliant chief philosopher and leader" of the nineteenth-century women's rights movement. Stanton has quite literally been the poster child for the historical campaign against abortion, appearing on posters, commemorative coffee mugs and federal legislation. This analysis offers a detailed account of Stanton's views related to abortion based on original historical research into the archives of Stanton's papers. Like other works of legal history, it is fundamentally concerned with recovering all of the legally relevant facts and placing those facts in appropriate historical and legal context.
The evidence shows that Stanton did not talk about abortion per se. She did not respond to the public campaign for the criminalization of abortion led by the medical profession with attacks on the growing autonomy of women. Instead Stanton reframed this debate as one of women's rights, framing the question as one of the "elevation of woman" through equal legal and social rights. Stanton's theory of "enlightened motherhood" placed women as the "sovereign of her own person" with sole responsibility for deciding when and under what circumstances to bear children. She defended women accused of infanticide, exposing the gendered legal system of all-male juries, legislatures, and judges that condemned them. Stanton's life work labored for radical change to the patriarchy of society seeking liberal legal reforms of equal rights for women. Her ideology was about the "self-sovereignty" of women and against the regulation of women by men or the law. Stanton thus seems an unlikely spokesperson for the modern anti-abortion movement committed to opposite ends.
Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

The Lincoln Legend

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 09:30 AM PST

John Blake of CNN reviews (and critiques) Steven Spielberg's new film "Lincoln," and suggests that the Spielberg Lincoln is not as accurate or as complex as the PBS Lincoln available in a three-part documentary which begins airing tonight. In part, says Mr. Blake, the documentary points out that Harriet Beecher Stowe, not President Lincoln, had a great part in persuading people that slavery was immoral, via her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Further, what fueled the enduring attraction of slavery in the South was not just twisted moral thinking on the part of its defenders, but its economic foundation. He discusses more reasons, more issues, here.
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