Law Commons^™

The Legal Origins Of Catholic Conscientious Objection, Jeremy Kessler

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article traces the origins of Catholic conscientious objection as a theory and practice of American constitutionalism. It argues that Catholic conscientious objection emerged during the 1960s from a confluence of left-wing and right-wing Catholic efforts to participate in American democratic culture more fully. The refusal of the American government to allow legitimate Catholic conscientious objection to the Vietnam War became a cause célèbre for clerical and lay leaders and provided a blueprint for Catholic legal critiques of other forms of federal regulation in the late 1960s and early 1970s—most especially regulations concerning the provision of contraception and abortion.

Over …

The Modern Architecture Of Religious Freedom As A Fundamental Right, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Justice Jackson In The Jehovah’S Witnesses’ Cases, John Q. Barrett

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Template Policy Re: Access To Medical Assistance In Dying In Publicly-Funded Institutions, Jocelyn Downie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Patients are being denied access to assessments for, and provision of, medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in publicly-funded institutions in Canada. Health authorities should implement policies that prohibit forced transfer for MAiD (assessments and provision) unless it can be achieved without undue delay or harm to the patient (as determined by the MAiD Program, not the institution). This is a template policy that health authorities could adopt to ensure access to a legal health service in all publicly-funded institutions (including faith-based institutions) under their authority.

Newsroom: Donald Trump Vs. Roger Williams 05-09-2017, David Logan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: David A. Logan's Blog: Donald Trump Vs. Roger Williams 05-08-2017, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Conscience Collisions: The Search For Public Policy Solutions To The Problem Of Doctrine In Medicine, Christina M. Claxton

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Free Exercise And The Definition Of Religion: Confusion In The Federal Courts, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The United States Supreme Court has sent mixed messages about what constitutes religion for free exercise purposes. The Court’s failure to offer clear criteria has resulted in widely differing interpretations in the lower courts, resulting in dissimilar treatment of relevantly similar cases. Further, some of the circuit courts employ factors to determine what qualifies as religious that are much more restrictive than the factors employed by the Court.

This article describes some of the differing approaches to defining religion offered in the circuits, noting that one of the approaches adopted across a few circuits not only mischaracterizes the Supreme Court’s …

An Essay On Christian Constitutionalism: Building In The Divine Style, For The Common Good(S), Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

Theocracy is a matter of growing global concern and therefore of renewed academic interest. This paper answers the following question: "What would a Christian constitution, in a predominantly Christian nation, look like?" The paper was prepared for presentation as the Clark Lecture at Rutgers School of Law (Camden), where papers answering the same question with respect to Jewish and Islamic constitutions and cultures, respectively, were also presented. A Christian constitution would not have as its aim the comparatively anodyne -- and ultimately futile -- business of introducing more "Judeo-Christian values" into the life of the typical nation state. The paper …

Conscience, Coercion, And The Constitution: Some Thoughts, Dwight G. Duncan

University of Massachusetts Law Review

As a consequence, this article will argue that the most viable constitutional strategy for protecting conscientious objectors is to bracket the question of whether it is religiously motivated. Rather, it will focus simply on the question of whether it is a sincerely held moral conviction, while seeking to expand existing freedom of speech case law under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to maximize protection for people of conscience from being obliged to act contrary to their conscience.

Whistleblowing And Freedom Of Conscience: Towards A New Legal Analysis, Richard Haigh, Peter Bowal

Dalhousie Law Journal

"Whistleblowing" is the act or process of alerting others to scandal, danger, malpractice, corruption or other wrongdoing. In this article, the authors assert that a strongly developed freedom of conscience, distinct from freedom of religion. could contribute to the development of socially-valuable whistleblowing. While conscience is often treated as inseparable from religion, the authors suggest that the deliberate inclusion of "conscience" in s. 2(a) of the Charter implies that "conscience" ought to be recognized as an independent and robust freedom. This then provides the framework for accepting and recognizing the importance of whistleblowing and lessening its socialstigma. The article presents …

The Constitutional Right Not To Kill, Mark L. Rienzi

Scholarly Articles

Federal and state governments participate in and/or permit a variety of different types of killings. These include military operations, capital punishment, assisted suicide, abortion and self-defense or defense of others. In a pluralistic society, it is no surprise that there will be some members of the population who refuse to participate in some or all of these types of killings. The question of how governments should treat such refusals is older than the Republic itself. Since colonial times, the answer to this question has been driven largely by statutory protections, with the Constitution playing a smaller role, particularly since the …

The Constitutional Right Not To Participate In Abortions: Roe, Casey, And The Fourteenth Amendment Rights Of Healthcare Providers, Mark L. Rienzi

Scholarly Articles

The Fourteenth Amendment rights of various parties in the abortion context – the pregnant woman, the fetus, the fetus’ father, the state – have been discussed at length by commentators and the courts. Surprisingly, the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the healthcare provider asked to provide the abortion have not. Roe and Casey establish a pregnant woman’s Fourteenth Amendment right to decide for herself whether to have an abortion. Do those same precedents also protect her doctor’s right to decide whether to participate in abortion procedures?

The Court’s substantive due process analysis typically looks for rights that are “deeply rooted” in …

Equality, Conscience, And The Liberty Of The Church: Justifying The Controversiale Per Controversialius, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

This paper considers the central normative claim of Martha Nussbaum’s Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality, viz., that the U.S. Constitution’s religion clauses should be construed to provide equal (and extensive) protection to the vulnerable human faculty called conscience. The paper argues that Nussbaum’s argument from Rawlsian political liberalism that leads to her normative constitutional claim amounts, perversely, to an attempt to justify the controversial by the more controversial. The paper goes on to argue that while equality and conscience are concepts that are reasonably contested, Nussbaum illegitimately gives them priority over the also reasonably …

Sexuality, Religion, And The Right Of Conscience, Emily R. Gill

Schmooze 'tickets'

No abstract provided.

Standing, Spending, And Separation: How The No-Establishment Rule Does (And Does Not) Protect Conscience, Richard W. Garnett

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …

What Does Religion Have To Do With Freedom Of Conscience?, Steven D. Smith

University of Colorado Law Review

Although the framers of the First Amendment chose to protect "the free exercise of religion" and deleted language about 'freedom of conscience, " a widely-held modern assumption maintains that constitutional protection should extend to conscience generally, not just to religious exercise. But is this extension defensible? This article considers three classic rationales for religious freedom-the "separate spheres" rationale, the 'futility" rationale, and the "higher duties" rationale-and asks whether they justify protection of non-religious conscience. The article concludes that all of the classic rationales are vulnerable to serious objections. However, a somewhat different rationale, which might be called the "personhood" rationale, …

Roger Williams's Gift: Religious Freedom In America, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.