Neutrality in Constitutional Law (With Special Reference to Pornography, Abortion, and Surrogacy)

Abstract

Much of modem constitutional law and theory is organized around two ideas.Both of them are associated with prominent strands in contemporary legal and political thought.The first idea is a general principle of neutrality.On that principle, government may not play favorites; it must be impartial.It may not, for example, take resources or opportunities from one person solely for the benefit of another.Nor may it make social outcomes depend entirely on the exercise of political influence.The second idea refines this principle by distinguishing between neutrality and partisanship.'It does so by treating existing distributions of wealth, opportunities, preferences, and natural endowments as the baseline against which assessments of neutrality and partisanship