Law, Religion, and Health in America

I am looking forward to participating in this conference in a few weeks at Harvard.

2015 Annual Conference

Law, Religion, and Health in America



May 8 - 9, 2015





Conference Description

Religion and medicine have historically gone hand in hand, but increasingly have come into conflict in the U.S. as health care has become both more secular and more heavily regulated.  Law has a dual role here, simultaneously generating conflict between religion and health care, for example through new coverage mandates or legally permissible medical interventions that violate religious norms, while also acting as a tool for religious accommodation and protection of conscience.  

This conference will: (1) identify the various ways in which law intersects with religion and health care in the United States; (2) understand the role of law in creating or mediating conflict between religion and health care; and (3) explore potential legal solutions to allow religion and health care to simultaneously flourish in a culturally diverse nation. 

Agenda

Note: All keynote, plenary, and panel sessions will include time for Q & A.

Thursday, May 7: Pre-conference session: After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar's What Is God's?

As prelude to “Law, Religion, and Health in America,” please join us for a pre-conference session examining the role of religion in the American public sphere. Our expert panel will discuss the nature of conscience and conscientious objection, religious freedom, and religious accommodation from philosophical, theological, historical, legal, and political perspectives.  

4:00 - 6:00pm: Panel Discussion

• 
  E. J. Dionne, Jr., Columnist, The Washington Post; Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
  
  


• 
  Diane L. Moore, Senior Lecturer on Religious Studies and Education and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School
  
  


• 
  Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
  
  


• 
  Frank Wolf, Representative, Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, U.S. House of Representatives, 1981-2015 (retired)
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Daniel Carpenter, Freed Professor of Government, Harvard University and Director, Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University 
  
  


• 
  Moderator: I. Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  

5:20 - 5:30pm: Remarks from Dean Minow

• Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

5:30 - 6:00pm: Audience Q & A

6:00 - 7:00pm: Reception

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Register online!

Co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center and the Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. Initiative on Religious Freedom and Its Implications at the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University.

Friday, May 8

8:00 - 8:30am: Registration

A continental breakfast will be provided.

8:30 - 8:35am: Welcome

• 
  I. Glenn Cohen, Professor, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  


• 
  Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  

8:35 - 9:20am: Plenary Address

• 
  Douglas Laycock, University of Virginia School of Law - Religious Liberty, Health Care, and the Culture Wars
  
  

​9:20 - 10:25am: Panel 1, Opening the Conversation: Testing the Scope of Legal Protections for Religion in the Health Care Context

• 
  R. Alta Charo, University of Wisconisin Law School - Creating Life as Protected Expressive Conduct
  
  


• 
  Leslie C. Griffin, University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law - What Would American Health Care Look Like if it Respected the Religion Clauses? How Would the Religion Clauses be Interpreted If They Valued American Health Care?
  
  


• 
  Samuel J. Levine, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center - A Critique of Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court’s Hands-Off Approach to Religion
  
  


• 
  Moderator: I. Glenn Cohen, Professor, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  

10:25 - 10:40am: Break

10:40 - 11:45am: Panel 2, Law, Religion, and Health Care Institutions

• 
  Ryan D. Meade, Loyola University Chicago School of Law - Can a Hospital Have a Conscience If It Doesn’t Have an Intellect and Will?
  
  


• 
  Elizabeth Sepper, Washington University School of Law - Contracting Religion: The Role of Private Law in Constructing Religious Identity and Enforcing Individual Compliance in Health Care Institutions
  
  


• 
  David M. Craig, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis - Mission Integrity Matters: A Consistent Approach on Catholic Health Care Values and Public Mandates
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Christine Mitchell, Executive Director, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School
  
  

​11:45am - 12:30pm: Lunch

Lunch will be provided.

12:30 - 1:15pm: Panel 3, Professional Responsibilities, Religion, and Health Care

• 
  Claudia E. Haupt, Columbia Law School - Religious Outliers: Professional Knowledge Communities, Individual Conscience Claims, and the Availability of Professional Services to the Public
  
  


• 
  Nadia N. Sawicki, Loyola University Chicago School of Law - Informed Consent and Disclosure of Providers’ Religious Convictions
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  

​1:15 - 2:35pm: Panel 4, The Impact of Religious Objections on the Health and Health Care of Others

• 
  Amy Sepinwall, University of Pennsylvania - Conscience and Complicity: Assessing Pleas for Religious Exemption inHobby Lobby's Wake
  
  


• 
  Nelson Tebbe, Brooklyn Law School, and Micah Schwartzman, University of Virginia School of Law - Religion Exemptions and Legal Baselines
  
  


• 
  Mary Anne Case, University of Chicago Law School - Why “Live-And-Let-Live” Is Not a Viable Solution to the Difficult Problems of Religious Accommodation in the Age of Sexual Civil Rights
  
  


• 
  Robin Fretwell Wilson, University of Illinois College of Law - Religious Conscience and Access: Choke Points, Gateways, and Bounded Measures
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Harvard Law School
  
  

​2:35 - 2:45pm: Break

2:45 - 3:50pm: Panel 5, A Case Study – Religious Beliefs and the Health of the LGBT Community

• 
  Craig Konnoth, University of Pennsylvania Law School - Reclaiming Biopolitics: Religion and Psychiatry in the Sexual Orientation Change Therapy Cases
  
  


• 
  Susan Stabile, University of St. Thomas School of Law - Religious Convictions About Homosexuality and the Training of Counseling Professionals: How Should We Treat Opposition to Counseling Homosexuals on Religious Grounds?
  
  


• 
  Shawn Crincoli, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center - Transgender Health Care & Religious Exemptions in Post-Hobby Lobby America
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Noa Ben-Asher, Harvard Law School and Pace Law School
  
  

​3:50 - 5:30pm: Panel 6, Accounting for and Accommodating Patients’ Religious Beliefs

• 
  Thaddeus Pope, Hamline University School of Law - Brain Death Rejected: Expanding Clinicians' Legal Duties to Accommodate Religious Objections and Continue Physiological Support
  
  


• 
  Teneille R.  Brown, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah - Accommodating Miracles
  
  


• 
  Jonathan Will, Mississippi College School of Law - Religion as a Controlling Interference that Prevents Autonomous Choice in Medical Decision Making by Minors Attempting to Utilize the Common Law Mature Minor Doctrine
  
  


• 
  Matthew J.B. Lawrence, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School - Paid Exercise: Hospital Chaplains and the Hobby Lobby Problem
  
  


• 
  Stacey A. Tovino, University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law - The Relationship Between Health Care and Religion in the HIPAA Privacy Rule
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Robert D. Truog, Professor, Harvard Medical School and Director, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School
  
  

​Saturday, May 9

8:30 - 9:00am: Registration

A contintental breakfast will be provided.

9:00 - 9:05am: Welcome

• 
  I. Glenn Cohen, Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  


• 
  Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center​​
  
  

9:05 - 10:10am: Panel 7, Religious Reasons in the Context of Reproductive Health Care

• 
  B. Jessie Hill, Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Regulating Reasons: Governmental Regulation of Private Deliberation and Religious Reasons in Reproductive Decision-Making and Health Care Decisions for Minors
  
  


• 
  I. Glenn Cohen, Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center - Religion, Rape, Incest, and Abortion: Should the State Evaluate the Reasons for Abortion? 
  
  


• 
  Dov Fox, University of San Diego School of Law - When Regulating Reproduction Establishes Religion
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Mindy Jane Roseman, Academic Director, Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School
  
  

​10:10 - 10:55am: Panel 8, Law, Religion, and Health Insurance 

• 
  Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center, and Gregory Curfman, Harvard Medical School - Hobby Lobby, Religious Employers, and Moving Away from Employer-Sponsored Health Care 
  
  


• 
  Rachel E. Sachs, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School - Religious Exemptions to the Individual Mandate: Health Care Sharing Ministries and the Purposes of the Affordable Care Act
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Marc A. Rodwin, Suffolk University Law School
  
  

​10:55 - 11:10am: Break

11:10am - 12:40pm: Plenary Session, The Contraceptives Coverage Mandate Litigation

• 
  Adèle Keim, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
  
  


• 
  Gregory Lipper, Americans United for Separation of Church and State  
  
  

12:40 - 1:30pm, Lunch

1:30 - 2:50pm, Panel 9, When Religion Intersects with Mental, Public, and Environmental Health

• 
  Abbas Rattani, Meharry Medical College School of Medicine - Religious Delusion, Decision-Making Capacity, and Culpability: Understanding Subjective Mental Illness Diagnoses in the Context of the Insanity Defense and Religious Freedom
  
  


• 
  Michele Goodwin, University of California, Irvine School of Law - Race, Religion, and AIDS
  
  


• 
  Aileen Maria Marty, Florida International University College of Medicine, Elena Maria Marty-Nelson, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center, and Eloisa C. Rodriguez-Dod, Florida International University College of Law - The Intersection of Law, Religion, and Infectious Disease on the Handling and Disposition of Human Remains
  
  


• 
  Jay D. Wexler, Boston University School of Law - When Religion Pollutes: How Should the Law Respond to Religious Beliefs and Practices That Harm the Environment and Risk the Public’s Health?
  
  


• 
  Moderator: Ahmed Ragab, Harvard Divinity School
  
  

​2:50 - 3:00pm: Closing Remarks

• 
  I. Glenn Cohen, Professor, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
  
  


• 
  Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center​​
  
  

How to Register

The conference is free and open to the public, but space is limited and registration is required. REGISTER ONLINE!