The Supreme Court in the Intimate Lives of Americans

In this truly fascinating and spellbinding work, Ball tells many tales. * Choice * A wonderful book dealing with personal issues each of us as individuals may face. Well-written and absorbing reading with numerous case studies that rely on materials and insider accounts from the private papers of the justices, this is a book for the general public and specialists alike to savor. -- Sheldon Goldman,University of Massachusetts, Amherst ...A thorough summary of the trajectory of current case law on the legal regulation of U.S. citizens' intimate lives. . . . A valuable introduction to increasingly important and salient legal questions about the constitutional limits on the state's ability to shape intimate lives in the United States. * Political Science Quarterly * Despite the controversial content of many of the cases, Mr. Ball maintains an air of bemused detachment and does not openly take sides. This is not a polemic. With few exceptions, the prevailing tone is light and scholarly. The goal is to illuminate, not to persuade. * New York Law Journal * ...A worthy assessment of the law of intimate association and personal decision-making. For those intrigued by the Court's human side, Ball provides a sufficient glimpse without raising the curtain on its realm of privacy that the justices have strived to protect. * Trial *

Howard Ball is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and University Scholar at the University of Vermont and Adjunct Professor of Law at Vermont Law School.

1 "Fundamental" Rights versus State Interests: The Balancing Process 2 Marriage and Marital Privacy 3 The "Rhapsody of the Unitary Family" 4 Motherhood or Not, That Is Her Decision 5 Raising the Child: "Father Knows Best"? 6 "Let Me Go!": Death in the Family 7 Family and Personal Privacy in the Twenty-First Century