Samantha von Ende

This Foreword situates the ongoing work of the Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality (IJLSE) within the current climate of campus protests and divisive national rhetoric. The foreword suggests that academic publications retain their importance in 2017, in spite of modern technology and democratized access to information, because they advance three important efforts. First, IJLSE provides the space for meaningful, supported, and dynamic discourse. Second, it does the critical work of informing the public and generating an educated citizenry, an attribute of society that Thomas Jefferson emphasized as the cornerstone of our democracy. Third, the space for discourse provides an opportunity to offer solutions to injustice, and, more fundamentally, to identify and frame those issues. These responsibilities arise out of the privilege editorial boards possess to both represent and amplify the voices of others. This privilege carries with it an immense responsibility: to do so fairly, accurately, swiftly, and with due regard for the pressing issues of the day.

In response to increasing calls for constitutional reform in The Republic of Turkey, and the escalating conflict in the Middle East, this paper aims to propose appropriate and effective emergency power provisions for Turkey's recently revised constitution. Through the framing of the academic discipline of constitutional design and in light of the best practices literature regarding emergency powers provisions, this paper seeks to apply the knowledge provided by history and by scholars in the fields of comparative constitutional law and political science to the Republic of Turkey, while taking account of the past and present realities concerning military strength and executive power in the country. An understanding of Turkey's important but precarious geopolitical position and its recent history of both military coups d'état and authoritarian rule will inform a necessary analysis upon which the proposals will build.

In an age of rapid advancement in the fields of science and technology, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure that the branches of government responsible for crafting and evaluating laws that safeguard public interests do so in an informed, honest, and responsible manner. This is particularly true in the sphere of women's reproductive health. Access to quality reproductive health care in the U.S. remains overwhelmingly inadequate. A review of recent legislation passed by U.S. state governments reveals a disturbing trend. Legislatures have relied on junk science and debunked theories, while overlooking reliable and illustrative social statistics, in order to propose and pass hundreds of morality-based laws in the domain of women's reproductive health. Significant deficits in public access to such care, therefore, can be attributed in large part to state legislatures' unscrupulous use of science (and pseudo-science) to craft laws that regulate women's reproductive decision making. Moreover, state and federal courts have entertained and dismissed challenges to these laws without critically assessing the science that purportedly underpins them. Courts' substantive deference to legislative processes, a hallmark of judicial review in the United States, has enabled repeated failures to call state legislatures on their bluffs and has, ultimately, only further entrenched this problem.

This Note first establishes the current trend of legislatures' unscrupulous use of science in regulating women's health, discussing the impact of these laws on individual choice, societal values and interests, and national reproductive health. Part II of this paper documents the role of the federal courts in establishing a legal framework that permits the passage of onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions by state governments. Part III then explores the various types of laws that have surfaced in recent years, those regulating women's reproductive health under the misleading guise of protecting the state's interest in the health of the mother and fetus. This note then examines potential future implications of a continued trend and proposes several possible ways of addressing this problem. In conclusion, Part V reviews various recommendations for how courts and activists can reverse this trend, suggesting, foremost among other options, that courts pay decreased deference to legislative fact-finding in processes that curb or burden individual rights.

Instituting a civil right to health care in the United States would be widely beneficial. Access to health care has demonstrated benefits for physical health, which, in turn, has demonstrated benefits for mental health. Improved health, furthermore, has been demonstrated to be a social utility, positively affecting productivity, economic prosperity, and group health. Acknowledging the practical benefits to instituting a civil right to health care, an analysis is performed on related tenets of western philosophy which influences American law, culture, and thought. A description of human nature, rights, social utility, justice, and human capital is offered in the philosophies of David Hume, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and Adam Smith and proves useful in validating the proposed civil right from a philosophical perspective. The associations drawn by some of these philosophers between education, the market, and public utility enable a comparison of the two-tiered education system in America with a similar possible system for health care. A two-tiered system and possible organization of it is thus proposed and defended on the basis that it has a demonstrated comparable precedent, promotes the exercise of liberty, benefits the worst off among us, and increases competition in the market.

As the world grows ever smaller from the impact of globalization and technological advance—which effectuate the interdependence, cross-pollination, and ease of communication between the various cultures and nations of the world—increasing opportunities arise for foreign and international actors to influence political and legal reform abroad.  In many instances, this influence is voluntarily sought and given. In others it is imposed on averse or apathetic populations. Though the manner, means, and degrees of such influence take many different forms,  the simple fact remains that increasing numbers of persons and institutions are advising on political and legal reform abroad, and that there have been both success stories and notable failures.  Some scholars have expressed reservation at the possibility for such advisors positively to affect such processes,  but the increasing opportunities and the emergence of expertise in the field of constitutional design can, if approached properly, promote valued ends.
          Given the professionalization of many disciplines, there is no reason for people to work in the dark when expertise exists.  But what is the nature of this expertise and how can we ensure that it serves the interest of those seeking guidance? Drawing on various ethical traditions, lessons from recent constitutional reform efforts and the rich history of foreign “borrowing” of legal traditions, this paper seeks to build upon the friendship model of constitutional advising originally advanced by David Williams to construct a professional ethic for the work of constitutional advisors engaged in work in foreign contexts.  In doing so, this paper will propose a framework for thinking about constitutional advising, ultimately distilling a set of fundamental principles to guide consulting work and engaging in an analysis of the various mechanisms that can operate to incentivize the ethical conduct of this emerging profession.
          The propagation of such a set of guidelines is vital to both the interests of the emerging practice of constitutional design as an interdisciplinary field of law and policy and to the interests of those calling upon consultants to enable them in the complicated process of establishing a system of self-governance.  Ultimately, the paper recognizes one primary ethical dilemma regularly encountered by those engaged in the work of constitutional advising: the conflict between the institutional mission or personal values of the advisors and the self-conceived interests of those seeking a new fundamental legal ordering. In reconciling this inherent tension, this paper ultimately proposes a set of guidelines for professional conduct centered around the ethical principle of the “duty to enable,” gleaning duties to third persons and the expectations of competence, diligence, communication, independence, and truthfulness from the ethic of enabling that is central to this profoundly important work.