I'm excited to invite readers in the Twin Cities area (or even further away if you want!) to two upcoming events at St. Thomas on the important relationships among faith, justice, and issues concerning technology, creativity, digital communications, and intellectual property. They will take place on Thursday and Friday, April 4 and 5.
1. Symposium. April 5, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., School of Law Atrium: The UST Law Journal and the Terrence J. Murphy Institute are co-sponsoring "Intellectual Property and Religious Thought," a groundbreaking gathering of a dozen leading scholars from the U.S. and overseas. Brief symposium description:
Should life be owned? How does the right to life intersect with investors’ rights to profit from life-saving products? How should the law respond when genetically modified plants cross-fertilize with heirloom crops cultivated by subsistence farmers? Does a patent-holder’s ownership of a reproducing GMO extend to all that organism’s descendants? The long, rich, diverse traditions of religious thought concerning property rights and obligations has only begun to be applied to these questions. This ground-breaking conference will bring together legal scholars, bioethicists, and theologians/religion scholars from diverse traditions for an interdisciplinary discussion of intellectual property and how religious themes, practices, and communities may inform and shape its law, policy, and moral/social effects. The University of St. Thomas Law Journal and the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy are pleased to convene this symposium of scholars who are defining and developing this exciting new field of interdisciplinary research. The conference will take place in the Atrium on April 5, 8:30-4:30pm. For the complete list of speakers and topics and to register, go here.
2. Breakfast Roundtable. April 4, 8:30-9:30 a.m., Center for Catholic Studies, 2055 Summit Ave, UST St. Paul Campus. An informal breakfast roundtable with Marco Fioretti, a writer on information technology and its effect on individuals, the family, civil society, and the Church. Marco, who will be here from Rome to participate in the April 5 conference, is, among other things, founder of Eleutheros.org, a site and organization pursuing "a Catholic approach to information technology." See his website here. To attend the roundtable, please RSVP to Seanne Harris.
The topic of Marco's remarks will be as follows: “Formats and software are a crucial part of the message in digital communications. Is the Church prepared to handle them to spread her message in the most effective way?” Abstract:
The nature of our age demands that the Catholic Church produces documents, and communicates, digitally, more and more every year. So far, however, very little attention has been paid to whether the usual, mainstream tools that many others already use are, indeed, technically suitable for the Church. Or if mainstream legal formulas and licenses are the most effective ones. For example, if the official words of the Church are meant to be forever, does it make sense to convey them through files or digital channels that may become unusable in just a few years? If they are meant to reach everybody, shouldn't they be accessible from every computer? How will Catholics of 2100 be sure that an Encyclical or other similar documents, only available to them in digital form, are exactly the same words that came out of the Vatican one century earlier? The meeting explains why this is an ethical problem, NOT a technical problem that could be delegated to software professionals and forgotten, and suggests some practical ways to deal with it.
These should be two very rich events on issues of great current and future importance. Hope to see some of you there!
Tom
Sunday, March 3, 2013
This was a busy week for me. The same day I joined as of counsel on an amicus brief arguing for protecting same-sex marriage and religious liberty, I joined in writing and filing a brief in one of the HHS mandate cases brought by a for-profit business, Newland v. Sebelius (now in the court of appeals for the Tenth Circuit). The amici are former Congressman Bart Stupak and the Democrats for Life of America, and the burden of the brief is to focus attention on the plaintiffs' claim against being forced to cover medicines that are, or that may colorably be thought to be, abortifacients. Here is a significant portion of the Summary of Argument:
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I. Multiple federal and state laws show that our nation’s tradition of protecting conscience, including religious conscience, is at its strongest and broadest for individuals and organizations that object to facilitating abortions. Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that the mandate, as applied to emergency contraceptives that may cause abortions, violates several such provisions, including in the Affordable Care Act itself. But the widespread pattern of conscience protection for objectors to abortion also supports plaintiffs’ claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), which served as the basis for the preliminary injunction. Three conclusions can be drawn from this pattern of conscience protection. First, although health-care conscience laws cover religious and moral objections to several procedures, objections to abortion carry especially strong weight in American law. They fall within our tradition of protecting objectors from participating in actions, including assisted suicide, abortion, capital punishment, and war, that the objectors believe unjustly take human life. Second, the right not to facilitate or support abortions protects a wide range of objectors, regularly extending to individuals engaged in for-profit commerce and to for-profit businesses. Finally, our tradition protects objectors to abortion far beyond the case of direct involvement in the performance of the abortion.
Plaintiffs’ objection to covering emergency contraception falls within the tradition of broadly protecting conscientious objections to facilitating abortions. Although the government claims that terminating an embryo before it implants in the uterus is not an abortion, the relevant matter for the claim of conscience under RFRA is plaintiffs’ belief that a distinct human life begins at fertilization: it is no salve to their conscience to be told that the government defines abortion differently. There is a colorable reason to believe that emergency contraceptives may act to terminate embryos. And even applying the government’s definition, there is evidence that Ella may terminate embryos after implantation.
II. The longstanding, pervasive tradition of broadly accommodating conscientious objections to facilitating abortions has two implications for this case. First, it supports plaintiffs’ argument that the contraception mandate “substantially burdens” their religious exercise, triggering the government’s duty under RFRA to demonstrate that this burden serves a “compelling governmental interest” and does so by the “least restrictive means.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(a), (b). The mandate requires plaintiffs to provide insurance coverage for procedures they believe are grave moral evils. The government’s attempts to deny this burden must be rejected. The government says that for-profit corporations and their owner-operators cannot engage in religious exercise; it also says that an employer suffers only an insubstantial, “attenuated” burden from being forced to cover methods and procedures that employees choose for themselves whether or not to use. Both arguments are irreconcilable with our tradition of protecting health-care-related conscience in the commercial sphere—in particular the strong tradition, under federal and state laws, of protecting objections to abortion. Protections for objections to facilitating abortion extend to multiple categories of for-profit entities and individuals engaged in commerce, and to many kinds of indirect facilitation, including mandatory coverage of abortion in insurance plans. When impositions are repeatedly prohibited under various conscience provisions, they cannot be dismissed as “insubstantial” burdens under RFRA.
Friday, February 1, 2013
The HHS proposed rules, issued today, are here. Becket Fund's reaction here. Christianity Today coverage here.
Pretty much the same proposals as the administration had brought up before, with tweaks. The proposed rule would eliminate the offensive language explicitly excluding employers from the definition of "religiious employer" if they serve or employ people outside the faith. But it doesn't change the reality much, because it retains the criterion that the employer fall within IRS rules as a church, integrated auxiliary of a church, part of an association of churches, or religious order. So soup kitchens run by churches are now within the exemption, but not independent faith-based soup kitchens, or Catholic Charities or Catholic hospitals. They are covered by the "accommodation" the administration is proposing, to have the insurer pay for contraception without, according to the administration, shifting any cost to the employer and without requiring employer referral or including contraception in the employer insurance contract. That proposal, of course, has satisfied some people concerned about nonprofits' religious liberty but has failed to satisfy others. And the proposed rule reaffirms that for-profit entities are not accommodated at all.
Tom
Friday, January 4, 2013
Illinois is considering and seemingly moving toward (although perhaps
more slowly than expected) recognizing same-sex marriage. Latest letters from two groups of academics, arguing for religious-liberty provisions, are
here,
here, and
here.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Here's a thoughtful column by Michael Gerson on what leaders must display in a time of austerity: a sense of proportion, the courage to take on large interests, and a sense of humanity. Wherever you think the balance should be, these orientations are right. And Gerson continues his compassionate-conservative defense of foreign aid against attacks like those by Sen. Rand Paul:
There are many substantive responses to Paul’s critique of aid. U.S.
foreign policy would not be particularly American if a commitment to
universal human dignity did not play some role. And acting according to
that commitment has traditionally been an important element of U.S.
influence — shaping our image and serving our interests.
But
Paul’s crusade against aid is most notable as a failure of leadership.
It lacks proportion, since the total of humanitarian assistance amounts
to less than 1 percent of the federal budget — an expenditure irrelevant
to the United States’ long-term, structural fiscal challenge.
