Kenneth L. Karst (26 June 1929 – 9 April 2019) was an American professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who wrote extensively on constitutional law and a wide range of other subjects.

He worked at Latham & Watkins for a short period, and was then a judge advocate general in the United States Air Force.

He believed in ensuring equal access to legal education, and helped the law school develop outreach programs aimed at minorities.

[2] Thus in 1977 Karst wrote of Roe v. Wade that it involved some of the most important aspects of a woman’s independence, control over her own destiny, and social roles.

Focusing on the equality aspects of the right requires moving away from a balancing of woman versus fetus towards an examination of abortion as “an issue going to women’s position in society in relation to men."