In a recent article in Newsweek , a writer suggested that there may be people whose religion requires them to perform abortions, and therefore laws restricting the practice violate the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the free exercise of religion. In a similar vein, the New York Times ’s Linda Greenhouse contended that the First Amendment prohibition on the establishment of a federal religion preempts religiously inspired restrictions on abortion. Mitchell Rocklin and Howard Slugh dismantle this newly popular line of argumentation: [It] makes no sense . . . to posit, as pro-choice advocates have recently done, that [restrictive] abortion laws tread on the free exercise of religion because they do not allow abortions to be performed by people who have no religious objections to them. No serious interpretation of religious liberty allows people to do whatever they want simply because their religion allows or promotes it. And even if a court decided that a state lacks a compelling interest in regulating abortion [the current legal standard in such cases], and that individual religious views ought to receive protection from the law, laws restricting abortion would not be invalidated. . . . Religious-liberty statutes [would only create accommodations or […]
News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.