Professor Kobil: Abortion bans give government right to take woman's property. She should be paid.

12/21/2022  - 

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe, individuals, organizations, and states have looked for ways to protect a woman's right to choose. In a guest column in the Columbus Dispatch, "Expert: Abortion bans give government right to take woman's property. She should be paid," Professor Dan Kobil explores one possible constitutional protection for a woman confronted with an unwanted pregnancy: the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Professor Kobil opines, "it has long been contended under Anglo-American law that the human body is actually our most personal form of property" prompting the question of "whether a regulation that forced a woman to carry an unwanted fetus for nine months “takes” her property, entitling her to judicial relief?"

To make his argument, Professor Kobil looks at how the Court, and two of its conservative jurists, Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts, have referred to one's body as property and how the takings clause applied thus allowing for compensation for the taking.

Professor Kobil asks that the Court "should explain exactly why state regulations that allow physical invasion of a man’s land require compensation, while those that do the same to a woman’s womb do not."