Article:
Rogers M. Smith, The Constitution and Autonomy, 60 Texas L. Rev. 175 (1982).
 

Abstract:
In this Article, Professor Smith identifies the doctrinal developments of autonomy as part of a broad and basic transformation in liberal political theory and American constitutional thought, instead of treating these developments as separate and unrelated. He states that the rise of autonomy as a fundamental value can be discerned not only in cases involving contraception, abortion, privacy, and so on, but also in expanding and broadening of free exercise claims, free speech guarantees, and procedural due process. Further, he notes that the Burger Court is replacing the partial recognition given by the Warren Court to autonomy with a jurisprudence that defends as autonomous only conduct sanctioned by conventional majoritarian morality. The article proposes some alternative courses “that might better redeem the hopes for personal freedom of both early and modern liberal theory.”