Cohen & Sayeed on Fetal Pain, Abortion, Viability and the Constitution

I. Glenn Cohen (pictured) and Sadath Sayeed (Harvard Law School and Harvard University - Harvard Medical School) have posted Fetal Pain, Abortion, Viability and the Constitution
(The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Vol. 39, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Can a U.S. state prohibit pre-viability abortions based on concerns about fetal pain?

Given that recent legislation in Nebraska purports to do so, and the fact that similar efforts are now working through the legislative process in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and other states, the question is a pressing one.

In this short paper for the leading peer-reviewed law and medicine journal, we are the first to comprehensively examine from a constitutional, medical, and bioethical perspective these efforts to prohibit early abortion based on concerns about fetal pain.