On July 17, Professor David Forte was featured in a front-page Wall Street Journal article on emerging divisions within the pro-life movement.  While pro-life activists have long sought to steadily impose new limitations on Roe v. Wade, a new group of activists have pressed for a more aggressive legislative strategy with the goal of overturning Roe.

The article discusses Professor Forte’s role in the pro-life movement’s development of “heartbeat” bills.  The article explains that Professor Forte “seized on medical research indicating cardiac activity was a key predictor of infant survival. He wrote an analysis that framed legislation not as a blunt attack on Roe, but as flowing out of the doctrine of Roe and later Supreme Court cases.”  Professor Forte advanced the argument to state legislators “that the viability standard was too ambiguous and subject to varying opinions,” and instead proposed that “detection of cardiac activity is a clearer, more precise dividing line, and would offer conservative Supreme Court justices an attractive alternative.”

The article is available to subscribers here.