Laurence Tribe Quotes

For those whose minds are made up, this book offers a window into the way the "other side" sees... of why you have not been able to persuade opponents... insights into what they believe and... why.

[W]e may... find more common ground than we currently imagine.

This book must... touch... deep and difficult questions about birth and death... life and its inception... sexuality and gender, about distribution of power.

This is... a book about morality. By offering several perspectives... some rooted in philosophy, some... in science and technology, we may come to see new ways to understand...

Since it first came before the Supreme Court... abortion... has been about the Constitution. Whom does it protect? How do we decide..?

This book challenges the inevitability of permanent conflict... and tries to lay the groundwork for moving on.

Since it was judges who had read abortion rights into the Constitution, abortion opponents believed, we needed judges who would read abortion back out... [S]ome urged a that would... have prohibited abortion or... at least have returned the question to each state's legislature, but... consensus and effort... proved elusive.

The political stage is... dominated by... well-rehearsed and deeply felt arguments, on either side... The debate is unending. ...[S]ingle-issue campaigning has ...distorted ...national elections. The losers will be the democratic process and the American people.

[T]he woman's right to decide for herself... is now subject to regulation, and possibly even prohibition, by our elected representatives. ...Even as the public agenda is stretched to address... questions as the , no issue threatens to divide us politically in... as powerful a way as the abortion issue...

Who knows the names of the countless women who have died from painful and illegal abortions? What of the names of the countless babies who would have been born...

If forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy that will almost certainly kill her is impermissible, how different... to compel... a pregnancy that will probably shorten her life? Or... that will leave her life in shambles?

Nothing is more devastating than a life without liberty. A life in which one can be forced into parenthood is just such a life. Rape is among the most profound denials of liberty, and compelling a woman to bear a rapist's child is an assault on her humanity. How different is it to force her to remain pregnant... because efforts at birth control accidentally failed?

This book is about a clash of absolutes, life against liberty.
No right is more basic than the right to live. ...If infanticide is wrong, is the destruction of a fetus at eight months of , or at five, any different?

Governmental subsidies to "major" political parties... or failure of state governments to provide funds to compensate school districts lacking "rich" property tax bases, are government actions that affirm some aspects of the status quo as inevitable. Such... are at present constitutional... Unable to support a challenge to such... power, a truly procedural... theory seems doomed... for without such challenge government may well be able to shape the "will" of the governed in the image of those who govern, reducing consent and representation to all but empty ideals.

The state shapes the society as much as the society shapes the state...