Law Commons^™

Why Some Religious Accommodations For Mandatory Vaccinations Violate The Establishment Clause, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

All states require parents to inoculate their children against deadly diseases prior to enrolling them in public schools, but the vast majority of states also allow parents to opt out on religious grounds. This religious accommodation imposes potentially grave costs on the children of non-vaccinating parents and on those who cannot be immunized. The Establishment Clause prohibits religious accommodations that impose such costs on third parties in some cases, but not in all. This presents a difficult line-drawing problem. The Supreme Court has offered little guidance, and scholars are divided.

This Article addresses the problem of religious accommodations that impose …

Adjudicating Religious Sincerity, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Recent disputes about the “contraception mandate” under the Affordable Care Act and about the provision of goods and services for same-sex weddings have drawn attention to the law of religious accommodations. So far, however, one of the requirements of a religious accommodation claim has escaped sustained scholarly attention: a claimant must be sincere. Historically, scholars have contested this requirement on the ground that adjudicating religious sincerity requires government officials to delve too deeply into religious questions, something the Establishment Clause forbids. Until recently, however, the doctrine was fairly clear: though the government may not evaluate the objective accuracy or plausibility …

Medical Futility And Religious Free Exercise, Teneille R. Brown

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

A tragic scenario has become all too common in hospitals across the United States. Dying patients pray for medical miracles when their physicians think that continuing treatment would render no meaningful benefit. This situation is unfortunately referred to as “medical futility.” In these cases, physicians, who are less likely than their patients to rely on God as a means of coping with major illness, are at an impasse. Their patients request everything be done so that they can have more time for God to intervene, but in the physician’s professional experience, everything will probably do nothing. What is the physician …