Law & Religion Roundtable
April 21-22, 2017
In recent years, a notable trend has emerged: religious claims in the delivery or denial of treatment in medicine, the withholding of medications at pharmacies, and the delivery of services to members of LGBTQ communities. For decades, religious objections have served as a foundational justification in the parent/child relationship, particularly with relation to vaccination care and other medical services, sometimes resulting in the deaths of children. These issues are in sharper focus in light of a robust LGBTQ movement that seeks legal protections and equality for members of its community, but too often encounters pushback from private industries and sometimes public institutions based on moral claims.
These issues are all the more urgent in light of debates on physician aid-in-dying.
How should scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers understand religious objections to engage with and provide services to communities often identified as vulnerable? Conscience clauses or “conscientious objections” carve out legal exceptions to permit behavior—justified by a religious opposition—that otherwise would be deemed illegal or actionable. Should lawmakers grant religious or conscientious objections in a liberal democracy? Are human rights concerns implicated either on behalf of individuals harmed by law’s accommodation of religious objection or by those who claim a special right to be excluded from legal duties to the public or patients? How can lawmakers reasonably assess when a religious objection is sincere, informed, or valid?
This roundtable focuses on the values and principles at the intersection of law, society, and religion. Specifically, roundtable participants will scrutinize the tensions between law and religion in relation to four key thematic areas: reproductive rights and reproductive justice; physician aid-in-dying; LGBTQ concerns and the law; and parent/child relationships in medical care.
Participation in the Law and Religion roundtable is by invitation.
-
Michele Bratcher Goodwin
Chancellor's Professor of Law
Director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy
University of California, Irvine School of Law -
Robin Fretwell Wilson
Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law
Director, Program in Family Law and Policy
Director, Epstein Health Law and Policy Program
Professor, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine
University of Illinois College of Law -
Frances Kissling
Former President, Catholics for Free Choice
Author, Guide for Prochoice Catholics: The Church, the State Abortion Politics -
Louise Melling
Deputy Legal Director
Director, Center for Liberty
American Civil Liberties Union -
Michael Moreland
Professor of Law
The Law School
University of Notre Dame -
Douglas NeJaime
Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Williams Institute
University of California, Los Angeles Law -
Michelle Oberman
Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law
Santa Clara University School of Law -
David Orentlicher
Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law
Co-Director, William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law -
David M. Smolin
Harwell G. Davis Professor of Constitutional Law
Director, Center for Children, Law and Ethics
Samford University Cumberland School of Law -
Harriet A. Washington
Author, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award -
Laurie Zoloth
Professor of Religious Studies
Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities
Charles McCormick Deering Professor of Teaching Excellence
Northwestern University