The James Wilson Foundation on Natural Rights and the American Founding

After Dobbs & the Crisis of the House Divided–JWI Founder & Director Hadley Arkes

On October 28, 2022, Prof. Hadley Arkes, JWI Founder and Director, delivered the public address to kick off our Senior Seminar. The talk, “After Dobbs & The Crisis of the House Divided,” centered on the recent Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, on abortion and the split among pro-life conservatives that it has revealed. As a long time leader in the pro-life movement, Prof. Arkes, analyzed the court’s decision and the responses from other conservatives as they face the new challenges presented in the fight to protect the unborn.  JWI Senior Scholar and Trustee Gerard Bradley offered a response to the lecture.

Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.
— James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1790