3 - Religious Exceptionalism and Religiously Motivated Harm

Summary

Religious conscience clauses deserve scrutiny in light of problematic trends emerging in society whereby religion has served as a legal tool to justify harms to women, people of color, homosexuals, and even inflicting injury on children.  Such cases are escalating, particularly in the reproductive healthcare setting with constraints on contraception and abortion access imposed on women.  In some instances, hospitals, medical providers, and pharmacists have denied women urgent and even life-saving treatments based on religious justifications. Frequently, those who wish to impose harms on others in the name of religion claim an exception by statute or the Constitution to do so.  This chapter argues that the use of religion to inflict injury or harm on others is a form of impermissible discrimination and explains that judicial deference to religiously based discrimination misreads free exercise of religion and expands the doctrine beyond its reasonable and legitimate limits.