Catholic hospitals have long prohibited abortion within their facilities. However, in the years after Roe, they were able to say “not here” while quietly relying on secular hospitals to offer the services needed to keep their patients safe. LRRP Director Elizabeth Reiner Platt has co-authored a paper in the Maryland Journal of Health Care Law and Policy that details this new relationship between hospital and state-level abortion bans.

“As progressive faith communities garner more public attention—and legal wins—my hope is that they lead us on a path toward a more pluralistic and balanced approach to religious liberty.”

– LRRP Director Liz Reiner Platt, Gender Policy Report.

"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.

This resource was originally created to accompany a post-screening talk on Under G-d, a documentary short film about the national Jewish response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

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.

A comprehensive report documenting the many contexts in which people of faith engaged in humanitarian and social justice work have fought for the right to exercise their religion.

Today, during his National Day of Prayer remarks, President Trump announced a finalized rule that creates expansive legal protections for healthcare providers with specific religious beliefs, including opposition to abortion, sterilization, end-of-life care, and healthcare for LGBTQ persons.

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.

“Under [HHS’s] proposed rule, a doctor who refuses to provide care that is medically indicated and requested by a patient is protected, while a doctor who does provide this care in accordance with her conscience can be fired.”

–LRRP Director Liz Platt

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.