Religion Law Commons^™

Urban Warfare: Emerging Geopolitical Conundrum, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Urban warfare is as old as human history. It is becoming increasingly important in international political and military planning due to increasing global urbanization and the presence of megacities (urban areas with populations exceeding 10 million) in many global regions and being in areas of recent and potential military conflict. 2018 World Bank data notes that approximately 56% of the world's population lives in urban areas which is up from 34% in 1960. Many of these megacities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Manila are adjacent to oceanic waters and vulnerable to trade and supply …

Changing The Subject Of Sati, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Charan Shah's 1999 death was widely considered to be the first sati, or widow immolation, to have occurred in India in over twenty years. Media coverage of the event focused on procedural minutiae-her sari, her demeanor-and ultimately, several progressive commentators came to the counterintuitive conclusion that the ritually anomalous nature of Charan's death confirmed its voluntary, secular, and noncriminal nature. This article argues that the "unlabeling" of Charan's death, like those of other women between 1999 and 2006, reflects a tension between the nonindividuated, impervious model of personhood exemplified by sati and the particularized citizen-subject of liberal-democratic politics in India.

Interview Of Margaret Mcguinness, Ph.D., Margaret Mcguinness Ph.D., Stephen Pierce

All Oral Histories

Dr. Margaret McGuinness was born in 1953, in Providence, Rhode Island. She went to an all-girls Catholic high school called St. Mary’s Academy Bayview in Providence where she graduated in 1971. McGuinness went on to major in American Studies and Civilization as an undergraduate at Boston University graduating with a B.A in 1975. She continued her work at Boston University where McGuinness earned a master’s of theological studies (M.T.S) focusing on Biblical and Historical Studies in 1979. She would move to New York to work on her dissertation at Union Theological Seminary finishing with her Ph.D. in 1985 concentrating on …

Professor Katherine Franke Joins An Amicus Brief In Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania And New Jersey V. Trump, Law, Rights, And Religion Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

On Monday, March 25th, Professor Katherine Franke, Faculty Director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, joined an amicus brief in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and New Jersey v. Trump,* a challenge to two rules that exempt employers with religious or moral objections from compliance with the contraceptive coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act.

Comment On U.S. Department Of Health And Human Services Rule, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

In medical facilities across the country, doctors whose conscience would require them to perform a sterilization on a patient who requests one, offer truthful information about accessing abortion services, or provide comprehensive LGBTQ+ health care are forbidden from doing so by their employer. The conscience of such medical providers is entirely ignored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) recently proposed rule that purports to “ensure that persons or entities” providing health care “are not subjected to certain practices or policies that violate conscience, coerce, or discriminate.” As explained in a comment submitted today by the Columbia …

Proposed New York State Health Regulation Contains Troubling Exemption: The Public Rights/Private Conscience Project Responds To A Proposal On Abortion Access, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

A proposed New York State regulation requiring insurance plans to cover “medically necessary” abortions contains a broad religious exemption that would undermine the state’s longstanding commitment to reproductive health. The exemption — which is not required by New York’s Constitution or laws — defines the term “religious employers” to include large nonprofits and even some for-profit companies. In the face of a national movement to enact anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice religious exemptions, the regulation would set a harmful precedent by accommodating religion at the expense of other fundamental liberty and equality rights.

Brief For Amici Curiae Church-State Scholars In Support Of Respondents In Zubik V. Burwell, Elizabeth Boylan

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The Law, Rights, and Religion Project assisted the Counsel for Church-State Scholars in the preparation of an amicus brief submitted in the Supreme Court of the United States case of David A. Zubik, et al., v. Sylvia Burwell, et al.

Law, Religion, And Medical Science: Conjunctive Or Disjunctive?, George P. Smith Ii

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Cloning: A Jewish Law Perspective With A Comparative Study Of Other Abrahamic Traditions, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article does not provide answers to the religious, ethical, and moral issues posed by advanced reproductive techniques in human cloning. Rather, the preceding analysis and discussion seeks to make a contribution, however modest, to the continuation of the societal discussion that will ultimately yield the answers. This Article presents the common concerns of the religious traditions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity with their mutual emphasis on preserving the dignity of all beings. This and other common values must form the foundation upon which all questions related to the cloning debate must be predicated.

Cloning People: A Jewish Law Analysis Of The Issues, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

This Article is an attempt to create a preliminary and tentative analysis of the technology of cloning from a Jewish law perspective. Like all preliminary analyses, it is designed not to advance a rule that represents itself as definitive normative Jewish law, but rather an attempt to outline some of the issues in the hope that others will focus on the problems and analysis found in this Article and will sharpen or correct that analysis. Such is the way that Jewish law seeks truth.

In the case of cloning-as with all advances in reproductive technology- the Jewish tradition is betwixt …

Ancient Answers To Modern Questions: Death, Dying And Organ Transplants - A Jewish Law Perspective, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Core values of the Jewish heritage are life and family, not death. An interpretation of Halachah which permits a broad definition of passive euthanasia without lapsing into acceptance of active euthanasia or its more evil cousin, assisted suicide, is consistent with these values. Also consistent with these values and the Jewish tradition is a modern definition of death which recognizes advances in medical technology that were beyond the knowledge or imagination of those who created the vast body of Rabbinic law. This approach will not only ease the suffering of families, it will allow organ transplants to save the lives …

Method In Jewish Bioethics: An Overview, Dena S. Davis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This essay introduces the reader to the processes by which Jewish ethical-legal reasoning brings old insights to bear on new problems generated by advances in science and medicine. There are at least four reasons why Jewish legal thinking in this area is important to the wider community of Western legal scholars. First, because the law often strives to consider different religious beliefs, it is important to understand these beliefs, the history of these beliefs, and how they function within their religious community.

Second, Jewish legal thinking is important because representatives of religious traditions frequently serve on policy and law-making bodies. …