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Roy Lucas collection on abortion litigation

 Collection
Identifier: 1000-187

Scope and Contents

This collection documents state and federal abortion laws and court cases in the United States, spanning 1967 to 1973. It contains state and federal abortion litigation case files, documents, and correspondence; materials of the James Madison Institute; research files on aspects of abortion law, including studies of the Constitution and state laws on rights of the fetus; and publications regarding abortion and abortion laws including newspaper clippings about court cases.

Dates

  • Creation: 1967-1973

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

University records - Copyright held by Wesleyan University; all other copyright is retained by the creator - In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted

Biographical / Historical

Following graduation from New York University Law School in 1967, Roy Lucas published a landmark article, "Federal Constitutional Limitations on the Enforcement and Administration of State Abortion Statutes," in the North Carolina Law Review. Soon his interest in student rights and other civil liberties issues were overwhelmed as abortion litigation came to him in ever-growing volume. In 1969 and 1970 he helped found, with Morris Dees, the James Madison Constitutional Law Institute with offices in New York City and Montgomery, Alabama. In 1972 and 1973 this organization was changed somewhat to become the Population Law Center with offices in San Francisco and Washington, D. C.

Extent

14 Linear Feet (28 hollinger boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

This collection documents state and federal abortion laws and court cases in the United States, spanning 1967-1973. It contains state and federal abortion litigation case files, documents, and correspondence; materials of the James Madison Institute; research files on aspects of abortion law, including studies of the Constitution and state laws on rights of the fetus; and publications regarding abortion and abortion laws including newspaper clippings about court cases.

Arrangement

The collection is organized into six series: Abortion Cases, Miscellaneous Correspondence, Lucas Papers, Miscellaneous Cases, Research, and Publications. The bulk of the material is contained within the first series on Abortion Cases, in which the materials are arranged by state, and then chronologically within each state.

Ms. Toby Singer, Wesleyan class of 1974, has undertaken the organization, the boxing and the description of these papers. The work was done in connection with a senior thesis project which took changes in abortion law as its subject. The description of Series and the Container List that follow are entirely the work of Ms. Singer.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Mr. Lucas agreed to place his closed files on abortion cases in the Wesleyan University Collection on Legal Change. The agreement was made in 1969 and a small volume of papers have been received from time to time until the Supreme Court's momentous abortion decision on January 22, 1973 in Roe v. Wade from Texas and Doe v. Bolton from Georgia. At this point a substantial file of papers from Roy Lucas was released to the Collection at Wesleyan.

Subject

Title
Roy Lucas collection on abortion litigation, 1967-1973
Status
Completed
Author
Processed by Toby Singer, 1974 Encoded by Andrea Benefiel, March 2010 Migrated to ArchivesSpace by Amanda Nelson, August 2020
Date
August 14, 2020
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the University Archives Repository

Contact:
Olin Library
252 Church Street
Middletown CT 06459 USA
860-685-3864