Overview

For the past forty years, prominent pro-life activists, judges and politicians have invoked the history and legacy of American slavery to elucidate aspects of contemporary abortion politics. As is often the case, many of these popular analogies have been imprecise, underdeveloped and historically simplistic. In Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning, Justin Buckley Dyer provides the first book-length scholarly treatment of the parallels between slavery and abortion in American constitutional development. In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Dyer demonstrates that slavery and abortion really are historically, philosophically and legally intertwined in America. The nexus, however, is subtler and more nuanced than is often suggested, and the parallels involve deep principles of constitutionalism.

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9781107031944

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Reviews

Advance praise: 'I cannot think of another scholarly book that addresses the abortion/slavery analogy in such a comprehensive manner. Professor Dyer skilfully ties the rhetorical use of the slavery analogy in the abortion debate to the substantive philosophical and legal questions on which the debates over slavery and abortion hinge. This analysis of the conceptual parallels between the pro-life and anti-slavery movements is fascinating. Sometimes, the best way to understand one's present situation is to look for analogous cases elsewhere - either in the past or in the present - about which there seems to be clarity.' Francis Beckwith, Baylor University

'I cannot think of another scholarly book that addresses the abortion/slavery analogy in such a comprehensive manner. Professor Dyer skilfully ties the rhetorical use of the slavery analogy in the abortion debate to the substantive philosophical and legal questions on which the debates over slavery and abortion hinge. This analysis of the conceptual parallels between the pro-life and anti-slavery movements is fascinating. Sometimes, the best way to understand one's present situation is to look for analogous cases elsewhere - either in the past or in the present - about which there seems to be clarity.' Francis Beckwith, Baylor University

Author Information

Justin Buckley Dyer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He received a BA in political science and an MPA from the University of Oklahoma, and an MA and PhD in government from the University of Texas, Austin. Dyer's research has been published in Polity, the Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, Politics and Religion, and Perspectives on Political Science. He is the author of Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the editor of American Soul: The Contested Legacy of the Declaration of Independence (2012).

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