Obama's Harvard Law Review "lost note" has re-emerged

at Politico (via Glenn Reynolds):

The subject matter took Obama to the treacherous political landscape of reproductive rights, and - unlike many student authors - he dived eagerly into the policy implications of the court decision. His article acknowledged a public interest in the health of the fetus, but also seemed to demonstrate his continuing commitment to abortion rights, and suggested that the government may have more important concerns than "ensuring that any particular fetus is born."

The temperate legal language doesn't display the rhetorical heights that run through his memoir, published a few years later, but provides insight into his support for abortion rights and expanded social services.

"[T]he case raises the broader policy and constitutional considerations that argue against using civil liability to control the behavior of pregnant women," Obama wrote of Stallman vs. Youngquist.

And he concluded the article with a flourish: "Expanded access to prenatal education and heath care facilities will far more likely serve the very real state interest in preventing increasing numbers of children from being born in to lives of pain and despair."