"As abortion rights defenders in Iowa and elsewhere navigate an increasingly restrictive legislative environment, RFRA challenges are only likely to increase—and they have the critical benefit of elevating the abortion stories of religious people."

–LRRP's Dr. Christine Ryan

LRRP filed an amicus brief in an Indiana Supreme Court case considering whether to uphold a lower court ruling that created religious exemptions from the state’s near-total abortion ban.

This article responds to critiques of lawsuits seeking a religious liberty right to access abortion, arguing that granting expansive religious liberty claims made by religious conservatives is both constitutionally problematic and normatively unfair.

LRRP’s Dr. Christine Ryan details how the conservative win in the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision was used to protect pro-abortion religious beliefs in Indiana.

This legal explainer tackles the three main myths surrounding the legal questions in lawsuits arguing for a religious right to abortion.

LRRP Director Liz Reiner Platt explains why religious liberty protects the right to refuse participation in a ritual as much as the right to engage in one.

LRRP and partners filed an amicus brief arguing that Free Exercise Rights would be burdened by Indiana's Fetal Tissue Disposition Law.

Liz Reiner Platt details our nation’s current trajectory, in which conservative Christians are able to shut down government programs they oppose, while religious minorities are left unprotected from threats to their religious practice.

This memo provides a brief overview of religious liberty laws, details the history of legal claims using a religious liberty right to abortion, and explores how such claims might be made today.

This report presents new research that hospitals across the region strictly regulate the provision of abortion, leading to delays and denials of care for patients facing severe pregnancy complications.

This legal explainer explores how religious exemption measures threaten more than just LGBTQ and reproductive health, and can limit or significantly undermine workers’ rights, public health, environmental welfare, emergency response, religious pluralism, and other crucial interests.

LRRP Director Elizabeth Reiner Platt explores the Trump administration’s continued assaults on progressive rights of conscience.

Prof. Katherine Franke joined an amicus brief in a case challenging rules that exempt employers with religious/moral objections from compliance with the contraceptive coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act. The brief explains that these rules conflict with constitutional religious liberty law by requiring employees to bear the cost of their employer's beliefs.

This report outlines the ways in which a guidance document issued by the Trump-era Attorney General interprets and expands religious liberty laws in a way that elevates the right to religious exemptions over other legal and constitutional rights. The guidance has been used to limit access to reproductive health care and threatens to limit enforcement of various health, employment, and anti-discrimination protections.

This report presents data showing that in many states, women of color disproportionately give birth in Catholic hospitals that place religious restrictions on care—even during medical emergencies. Such restrictions stand to exacerbate the existing disparities women of color already face in accessing quality reproductive health care.

This report shows how recent legislative efforts to expand religious liberty rights, such as the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), allow religious objectors to violate laws that protect against pregnancy, familial status, and marital status discrimination.

LRRP assisted the Counsel for Church-State Scholars in the preparation of an amicus brief submitted in the Supreme Court of the United States case of Zubik v. Burwell. We also issued a fact sheet exploring what women of color have at stake in this round of litigation over the ACA.