美国最高法院堕胎权案的宪法解读——从“罗伊案”“凯西案”到“多布斯案”之考察

Approaches of Constitutional interpretation of the abortion rights in verdicts of the Supreme Court of the United States--From Roe,Casey to Bobbs

“罗伊案”判决近五十年后,美国最高法院在“多布斯案”中以5∶4裁定堕胎权不受宪法保护,应由各州议会或国会通过民主过程自行决定。堕胎权的判决之所以在最高法院反复如此之久,原因是其牵涉政治权与司法权边界的厘定,联邦权与州权的界定,宪法究竟应该如何解读,遵循先例与回应民意如何平衡等一系列古老的法理问题,同时又掺杂着世俗权力与宗教权威的冲突,种族矛盾,以及社会贫富差距所引发的平等权利之纠纷。本文通过对三个标杆性案件中堕胎权的宪法解读分析,考察各种主张的局限性,为理解美国堕胎权案争议提供一个认识论的框架。同时,又因堕胎权案所涉及的宪法诠释争议也常出现在最高法院其他法庭意见中,所以对堕胎权案的宪法解读,也能有助于理解最高法院的其他判决的法理依据。

Nearly 50 years after the verdict given in the Roe v.Wade,the Supreme Court ruled by 5 to4 in the Dobbs that the right to abortion is not protected by the Constitution and should be decided by the individual state legislature or federal Congress through a democratic process.The reason why the verdicts given by Justices are repeatedly in conflict is that the interpretations of abortion rights involves a series of legal issues which can be dated back to ancient times,such as the delineation of the boundary between political power and judicial power,and between federal power and state power,how to interpret the constitution,and how to follow precedents while responding to the public opinion.Moreover,the interpretation of abortion rights become more complicated for it also involves the conflict between secular power and religious authority,the disputes incurred by racial inequality,and wealth gap.By analyzing the verdicts in three abortion-right benchmark cases from the perspective of different constitution interpretation approaches,this paper examines the limitations of various claims,and provides an epistemological framework for understanding the dispute over the right to abortion in the United States.At the same time,because the dispute over the approaches of constitution interpretation in the abortion right cases often appears in the court opinions of other cases of the Supreme Court,the epistemological framework proposed in the paper might be conducive to understand the legal interpretations of other Opinions of the Supreme Court.