This is a collection of links about abortion and religious freedom as mentioned in the First Amendment and Establishment clause of The US Constitution.
- “The First Amendment and the Abortion Rights Debate” Following Dobbs v. Jackson’s (2022) reversal of Roe v. Wade (1973) — and the subsequent revocation of federal abortion protection — activists and scholars have begun to reconsider how to best ground abortion rights in the Constitution. In the past year, numerous Jewish rights groups have attempted to overturn state abortion bans by arguing that abortion rights are protected by various state constitutions’ free exercise clauses — and, by extension, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. While reframing the abortion rights debate as a question of religious freedom is undoubtedly strategic, the Free Exercise Clause is not the only place to locate abortion rights: the Establishment Clause also warrants further investigation.
- “BRIEF OF THE FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION, CENTER FOR INQUIRY, AND AMERICAN ATHEISTS AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS” Religion has always been at the heart of anti-abortion legislation Throughout history, as issues involving sex became the subject of public debate, “political, legal, and constitutional battles over obscenity, contraception, abortion, sodomy, and same-sex marriage sharply divided Americans along religious lines. Religious organizations and churches became the primary force arguing that religious moralism required the government to restrict certain conduct, including abortion.
- “Free Speech & Abortion: The First Amendment Case Against Compelled Motherhood” …this essay argues that parallel developments in First Amendment law not only reinforce the traditional justification for safeguarding a woman’s freedom to determine whether to continue a pregnancy, but provide an independent justification for subjecting abortion restrictions to heightened judicial scrutiny. Over the past fifty years, Justices that would restrict the Fourteenth Amendment’s role in guaranteeing individual liberty have successfully argued for a greater role for the First Amendment. Government regulation of conduct, especially commercial conduct, previously not recognized as protected speech has increasingly been subject to heightened judicial scrutiny and, in some cases, categorical protection.
- “FIRST AMENDMENT IMPLICATIONS: REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS” Following Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (June 24, 2022), which withdrew the fundamental constitutional right to abortion in place since Roe v. Wade (1973), several distinct First Amendment arguments have arisen regarding state laws that restrict or guarantee access to abortions and other reproductive freedoms.
- “Abortion, Moral Law, and the First Amendment: The Conflict Between Fetal Rights & Freedom of Religion Between Fetal Rights & Freedom of Religion” The status of abortion as murder, and therefore amenable to governmental intervention and criminalization, has been asserted by those favoring limits on abortion. Opponents claim a superior right of privacy and/or equality exists under the Constitution, vesting in a woman the right to decide activities and actions that affect her physical corpus. The claimed interest of a State to protect the fetusis impliedly based on the concept of “morality” or “natural law,”specifically on the premise that feticide is violative of the basic cod eof conduct of societal norms. To my knowledge, until now, this is the first investigation undertaken to determine whether in fact indica-tors of “natural law” or the moral code support this claim from a legal perspective.