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September 27, 2017, 12:00 PM

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In July 2017, Cambridge University Press published Law, Religion, and Health in the United States, co-edited by outgoing Petrie-Flom Center Executive Director Holly Fernandez Lynch, Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen, and Elizabeth Sepper, Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law. This edited volume stems from the Center’s 2015 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to identify the various ways in which law intersects with religion and health care in the United States, examine the role of law in creating or mediating conflict between religion and health care, and explore potential legal solutions to allow religion and health care to simultaneously flourish in a culturally diverse nation.

About the book: While the law can create conflict between religion and health, it can also facilitate religious accommodation and protection of conscience. Finding this balance is critical to addressing the most pressing questions at the intersection of law, religion, and health in the United States: should physicians be required to disclose their religious beliefs to patients? How should we think about institutional conscience in the health care setting? How should health care providers deal with families with religious objections to withdrawing treatment? In this timely book, experts from a variety of perspectives and disciplines offer insight on these and other pressing questions, describing what the public discourse gets right and wrong, how policymakers might respond, and what potential conflicts may arise in the future. It should be read by academics, policymakers, and anyone else - patient or physician, secular or devout - interested in how US law interacts with health care and religion.

Panelists

  • I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School (co-editor)

  • Diane L. Moore, MDiv, DMin, PhD, Director of the Religious Literacy Project; Lecturer on Religion, Conflict, and Peace; and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

  • Elizabeth Sepper, JD, LLM, Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law (co-editor)

  • Moderator: Intisar A. Rabb, JD, PhD, Professor of Law and History; Director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School; Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Order the book now from Cambridge University Press!

Learn More!

Check out video from the Law, Religion, and Health in America conference!

This event was free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.


Videos

VIDEO: Carmel Shachar, Introduction

VIDEO: Intisar A. Rabb, Moderator

VIDEO: I. Glenn Cohen, "Religion and Reproductive Technology"

VIDEO: Diane L. Moore, "From Smith to Hobby Lobby: The Transformation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act"

VIDEO: Elizabeth Sepper, "Contracting Religion"

VIDEO: Audience Q & A

Tags

abortion   bioethics   contraception   health law policy   judicial opinions   public health   regulation   religion   reproductive rights   reproductive technologies