For me, the annual Book Review issue is a time for reflection. It provides an opportunity to take stock of scholarly trends, reassess conventional wisdom, and gather new insights to apply to the practice of law. The reviews contained in this year’s issue address a wide range of subjects, including the history of public defenders, the use of bigotry rhetoric in conflicts over marriage and civil rights law, the role of cost-benefit analysis in federal policymaking, and racial inequities in tax policy. This impressive commentary on an astute and varied collection of books about the law will inspire many of us to pause and consider larger questions about our own work: Where do things stand? How did we get here? What comes next?My career has largely focused on reproductive rights. It is an area of the law that is perpetually at a crossroads and therefore always ripe for reflection. These rights, long recognized and deeply valued by a majority of Americans, are continually under attack and always—it would seem—on the brink of elimination. Almost from the day Roe v. Wade was decided, critics began calling for it to be overruled, and commentators began predicting its downfall. Although it has weathered the storm for nearly fifty years, those critics and commentators remain undeterred, still forecasting Roe’s imminent demise. And who knows? Perhaps this charged moment in our nation’s history, which seems increasingly like the dystopian future that prescient novelists warned of long ago, will see a disruption in constitutional protection for reproductive rights. Or perhaps the rights that have been central to the liberty and equality of women and gender-expansive people for half a century will continue to endure.In this Foreword, I would like to reflect on two aspects of reproductive rights law in particular. First, there is a seeming duality in the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence. On the surface, it embodies a longstanding commitment to safeguarding the right to abortion. But just below the surface, the caselaw reflects a deep tension between this commitment and the Court’s recognition that certain members of our society—some motivated by “unprincipled emotional reactions” and others motivated by “principles worthy of profound respect”—will never accept that the Constitution grants the authority to make decisions about the outcome of a pregnancy to the individual who is pregnant rather than to the government. Second, the abortion right has proven surprisingly durable despite powerful efforts to subvert it. It seems that the vital relationship of this right to core constitutional values like liberty, equality, and freedom of belief, and the critical role that it plays in the ability of women and all people with the capacity for pregnancy to participate fully and equally in society, make it extremely difficult to cast aside, rhetorical denunciations notwithstanding.

中文翻译：

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永无止境的生殖权利斗争

对我来说，一年一度的书评问题是反思的时候。它提供了一个机会来评估学术趋势，重新评估传统智慧，并收集新的见解以应用于法律实践。今年的问题包含的评论涉及广泛的主题，包括公设辩护人的历史，在婚姻和民权法冲突中使用偏执言论，成本效益分析在联邦政策制定中的作用，以及种族不平等税收政策。这篇对精明而多样的法律书籍的令人印象深刻的评论将激励我们中的许多人停下来思考关于我们自己工作的更大问题：事情在哪里？我们是怎么来到这里的？接下来会发生什么？我的职业生涯主要集中在生殖权利上。这是一个永远处于十字路口的法律领域，因此总是适合反思。这些权利长期以来受到大多数美国人的认可和高度重视，但它们不断受到攻击，而且总是——看起来——处于被淘汰的边缘。几乎从决定 Roe v. Wade 的那一天起，批评者就开始呼吁推翻它，评论员开始预测它的垮台。尽管它经受住了近五十年的风暴，但那些评论家和评论家仍然没有被吓倒，仍然预测着罗伊的即将消亡。谁知道呢？也许我们国家历史上的这个充满活力的时刻，似乎越来越像有先见之明的小说家很久以前警告过的反乌托邦未来，将会看到宪法对生殖权利的保护受到破坏。或者，半个世纪以来一直对妇女和性别膨胀的人的自由和平等至关重要的权利可能会继续存在。在这篇前言中，我想特别反思生殖权利法的两个方面。首先，最高法院的堕胎判例似乎存在二元性。从表面上看，它体现了对维护堕胎权的长期承诺。但就在表面之下，判例法反映了这一承诺与法院承认我们社会的某些成员——一些人受到“无原则的情绪反应”和其他人受“值得深切尊重的原则”的激励——永远不会接受宪法赋予权力对怀孕的个人而不是政府做出关于怀孕结果的决定。其次，堕胎权已被证明令人惊讶地持久，尽管人们付出了巨大的努力来颠覆它。似乎这项权利与自由、平等和信仰自由等核心宪法价值观的重要关系，以及它在妇女和所有有怀孕能力的人充分和平等地参与社会的能力中所起的关键作用，让人难以舍弃，