| Abstrakt: |
Walter Dellinger's scholarship, litigation, and popular writing were marked by a distinctive combination of doctrinal sophistication, strategic sagacity, and deep humanity. One theme that informed his work was the "normative power of the actual": the idea that "what is already in place, seems right." Dellinger saw that while that concept can produce unthinking acceptance of an existing, and unfair, legal order, it need not always be so. Sometimes, the normative power of the actual can bend the legal order to accommodate social change that has already occurred. Dellinger's work on abortion rights and on gay equality illustrates this point. Dellinger offered a powerful critique of abortion laws that rested on blinkered accounts of history and present-day conditions. And his embrace of the normative power of the actual anticipated the nation's reaction to the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Similarly, Dellinger harnessed the normative power of the actual to help achieve marriage equality for same-sex couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
