The history and effect of abortion conscience clause laws

Conscience clause laws allow medical providers to refuse to provide services to which they have religious or moral objections. In some cases, these laws are designed to excuse such providers from performing abortions. During the 108th Congress, S. 1397, an abortion conscience clause bill, was introduced in the Senate, and a companion bill, H.R. 3664, was introduced in the House. Although neither of these bills were enacted, Congress did pass appropriations legislation that contained a conscience clause provision. This report describes the history of the conscience clause as it relates to abortion law and provides a legal analysis of the effects of such laws, including the provision contained in P.L. 108-447, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005. Legislators are likely to consider similar legislation during the 109th Congress

The conscience clause at school

Discussion of the conscience clause at schools concerns the possibility to refuse the teacher’s actions incompatible with his conscience. This possibility, though questioned by many as unlawful, results from Polish legislation and international law. It is a consequence of freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and a number of international and national legal acts. There are many situations in which reveals the conflict between the duty of performing a given program or command of educational authorities and their own convictions. They concern mainly the same vision of the school and its functions, school programs and the underlying concept of the human being and interpersonal relationships at the level of professional work of the teacher. In all these situations, the teacher should be a person of conscience, i.e. to follow his voice, which sometimes means opposition to the content of curricula and textbooks, orders of superiors or the prevailing customs.ks. dr hab. TADEUSZ ZADYKOWICZ – absolwent Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. Asystent w Katedrze Teologii Moralnej Szczegółowej w Instytucie Teologii Moralnej KUL (2001-2003), następnie adiunkt w tej Katedrze (2003-2005) i w Katedrze Teologii Moralnej Ogólnej w Instytucie Teologii Moralnej KUL (2005-). Członek Odwoławczej Komisji Dyscyplinarnej do Spraw Studentów i Doktorantów; dyrektor Instytutu Teologii Moralnej KUL. Członek i współpracownik Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL (2002-); członek zwyczajny Stowarzyszenia Teologów Moralistów (2007); członek korespondent Lubelskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego (2003-) oraz Europejskiego Stowarzyszenia Teologów Katolickich (2004-); Towarzystwa Naukowego Franciszka Salezego (2008-). Główne kierunki badań: moralność życia religijnego; współczesny kontekst życia religijno-moralnego; biblijne oraz kulturowe przesłanki moralności; rola wzorów osobowych w chrześcijańskim życiu moralnym.Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła IIDeklaracja wiary lekarzy katolickich i studentów medycyny w przedmiocie płciowości i płodności ludzkiej (5 marca 2014 r.), http://www.deklaracja- wiary.pl/img/dw-tresc.pdf (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Deklaracja wiary nauczycieli? Hall: nie zatrudnia się ich w celu ewangelizacji uczniów, http://www.polskieradio.pl/5/3/Artykul/1190178,Deklaracja- wiary-nauczycieli-Hall-nie-zatrudnia-sie-ich-w-celu-ewangelizacji- -uczniow (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Klauzula sumienia w szkołach? Nowicka: nauczyciel nie może cenzurować wiedzy, http://www.polskieradio.pl/9/299/Artykul/1195806, Klauzula-sumienia- w-szkolach-Nowicka-nauczyciel-nie-moze-cenzurowac-wiedzy (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Konstytucja Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej (2 kwietnia 1997 r.), Tekst ujednolicony: http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU19970780483.Morciniec P., Przeżywamy dyktaturę demokracji, http://www.fronda.pl/a/ ks-prof-piotr-morciniec-przezywamy-dyktature-demokracji-1,42990.html (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Nauczyciele też będą podpisywać deklarację wiary? Minister: szkoła publiczna powinna być neutralna światopoglądowo, http://www.polskieradio. pl/5/3/Artykul/1188918,Nauczyciele-tez-beda-podpisywac-deklaracje- -wiary-Minister-szkola-publiczna-powinna-byc-neutralna-swiatopogladowo (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Sobór Watykański II, Konstytucja duszpasterska o Kościele w świecie współczesnym Gaudium et spes, [w:] Sobór Watykański II. Konstytucje. Dekrety. Deklaracje, Poznań 2002.Stanisz P., Prawo do odmowy działania sprzecznego z sumieniem, www. przemyska.pl/plik/22141/ (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Stanisz P., Sprzeciw sumienia a prawo państwowe, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=E-HKn46VsOE (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Staszewski W., Wierzę, że uczę, http://polska.newsweek.pl/wierze-ze-ucze- -o-klauzuli-sumienia-nauczycieli-newsweek-pl,artykuly,344944,1.html (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Trybulski Ł., Lekarze podpisują klauzulę sumienia, a co z resztą zawodów? Strażak, policjant, nauczyciel..., http://natemat.pl/104381,internauci- smieja-sie-z-klauzuli-sumienia-strazak-policjant-nauczyciel (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).Wróbel J., Sprzeciw sumienia z perspektywy moralnej, http://www.naszdziennik. pl/mysl/106045,sprzeciw-sumienia-z-perspektywy-moralnej. html (dostęp: 30.01.2015 r.).137-14914/213714

Legislator-Led Legislative Prayer and the Search for Religious Neutrality

Leading a group in prayer in a public setting blurs the line between public and private. Such blurring implicates a constitutional tension between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. This tension is magnified when the constitutionality of prayer is questioned in the context of democratic participation. Current Supreme Court precedent holds legislative prayer to be constitutional, but the relevant cases, Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece, NY v. Galloway, do not address the specific constitutionality of legislator-led prayer. There is currently a circuit split on the subject: in Bormuth v. County of Jackson, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held legislator-led legislative prayer to be constitutional, but in Lund v. Rowan County, N.C., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion, despite the case having strikingly similar facts. I seek to confront this tension. First, I challenge the validity of the precedent on legislative prayer. Then, accepting the current precedents as valid, I argue legislator-led prayer in public legislative sessions is unconstitutional. This analysis evaluates the interplay of the original intent of the Establishment Clause, the changes in the social structure of the United States since the eighteenth century, and the unique role of the legislator, separate from that of a guest minister or ordinary citizen. Ultimately, I attempt to inject empathy into legal analysis by pointing to the tangible effects of legislator-led prayer: alienation from the community and increased violence against religious minorities. I hope to highlight these harms as sufficient in themselves to implicate the Establishment Clause and to bolster the argument for holding this practice to be unconstitutional

‘Not in My Name’ Claims of Constitutional Right

We have a constitutional right against the state forcing us to be associated with expression with which we do not wish to be associated. The freedom of expressive association is not stated in our Constitution’s text. Rather, it is derived from various provisions of the First Amendment. As the freedom of speech protects, among other things, our right to shape how we present ourselves to the world, so does the freedom of expressive association protect us from the state shaping us by connecting us to ideas not of our choosing. Our freedom of expressive association allows us to claim an idea as our own, and to say “that idea is not mine . . . and you may not say it in my name.” This “not in my name” conception of constitutional right has iterations in several areas of First Amendment law: compelled speech, compelled subsidies for speech, and the Establishment Clause. Compelled support for government speech, though, is valid, because the state speaks in the name of its citizens. The understanding of expressive association as undergirding “not in my name” claims of constitutional right allows us to solve two lingering problems of misattribution in the compelled subsidies for speech and Establishment Clause case law. But whether or not misattribution is present, we maintain a broad presumptive right against the state’s advancing ideas in our name

Time to Bury the Shocks the Conscience Test

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Due Process Clause, like its forebear in the Magna Carta, was \u27intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government\u27...to prevent governmental power from being \u27used for purposes of oppression.\u27 1 Historically, Magna Carta was aimed a·t limiting the power of the king. Today, substantive due process is invoked to challenge arbitrary deprivations of life, liberty, and property by officials, such as police officers, jail guards, public-school educators, public employers, and members of zoning boards. However, the Supreme Court has emasculated its efficacy as a limitation on executive power. In 1998, in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, it held that the criteria to identify what is fatally arbitrary differ depending on whether it is legislation or a specific act of a governmental officer that is at issue. 2 Whereas legislative enactments are subject to varying levels of scrutiny depending on the nature of the rights at stake, the Court asserted that only the most egregious executive misconduct, that which shocks the conscience, will be actionable.3 Since 1998, Lewis has created significant confusion and division in the appellate courts, severely restricting the ability of detainees, students, government employees, and landowners, to bring substantive due process challenges to the arbitrary exercise of power. Some circuits have required that litigants prove that executive misconduct both infringe on a fundamental right and shock the conscience. Because neither employment nor property are regarded as fundamental rights, most allegations of arbitrary treatment brought by government employees and landowners are dismissed. Other appellate courts allow substantive due process challenges to the deprivation of non-fundamental property or liberty interests only where the litigant demonstrates the inadequacy of state law remedies, thereby permitting the vagaries of state tort law to determine the fate of constitutional claims. Further, the appellate courts have interpreted the shocks the conscience\u27\u27 test to impose a draconian standard, mandating, for example, that detainees demonstrate unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain or that students prove intentional malice or sadism in order to challenge excessive, unwarranted corporal punishment. The thesis of this Article is that the \u27shocks the conscience test, which is founded on a false dichotomy between substantive due process challenges to executive and legislative action, should be rejected. First, it is historically untenable. The core concern of Magna Carta, the source of substantive due process, was to limit executive abuse of power. This was the understanding of those who framed and ratified the Due Process Clause. Thus, it is counterintuitive to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to challenge executive misconduct. Second, Lewis rests on shaky precedent and has not been consistently adhered to by the Supreme Court in subsequent cases. Third, the concern cited by the Court to justify a more stringent standard for executive action fear of converting § 1983 substantive due process claims into a font of tort law is unfounded and exaggerated. Section 1983 should not drive constitutional interpretation, and immunity defenses already significantly insulate government officials and entities sued for § 1983 damages. Fourth, the numerous circuit conflicts demonstrate that the test has proven to be an unworkable analytical tool. To restore substantive due process as a meaningful safeguard against arbitrary abuse of government power, Lewis should be overturned. Recognizing, however, the concerns of subjectivity and unbridled discretion that have surrounded the substantive due process conundrum, this Article proposes a new test with specific criteria, extrapolated from various Supreme Court and appellate court decisions, to guide courts in determining when government misconduct should be viewed as an unconstitutional abuse of power. ---------- 1 Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331 (1986) (citations omitted). 2 County of Sacramento v. Lewis; 523 U.S. 833, 846 (1998). 3 Id