Abortion Rights as the Free Exercise of Religion: The Constitutional Case for Choice

This book is the first to analyze Supreme Court decisions related to religious freedom and abortion rights, showing that the Court gives women a religious right to abortions, at least during the first half of pregnancy. The Court considers any sincerely claimed religious belief to be worthy of accommodation if it causes no great harm. Therefore, a woman who claims that having a child would interfere with work dedicated to God’s glory should receive an accommodation that exempts her from state laws restricting abortion, as that is the kind of relief accorded by the Court to others seeking religious exemptions from generally applicable laws and other rules.

The Court cannot claim in this case that abortion causes great harm, because it maintains even in its most recent abortion decision that it is neutral on the question of when the unborn attains a right to life, and loss of the unborn’s life is the central harm claimed by others regarding abortion. The book argues that 21 weeks of gestation is the earliest point at which a right to life can be attributed to the fetus on a scientific basis.

Peter S. Wenz is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and adjunct professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has also taught for at least one semester each in England (both London and Oxford), Scotland, and New Zealand and has lectured in Ireland, Australia, Spain, Germany, China, Australia and France. He has more than 40 articles and book chapters as well as ten single-authored books on topics in medical ethics, animal rights, environmental philosophy, political philosophy, moral issues in the law, constitutional law, hot-button political issues, and the philosophy of religion.