In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]
Spring is the season for school graduations, and graduation ceremonies play a featured role in the national debate over the place of religion in public education. Is a clergyman’s benediction at a public school event a violation of the separation of church and state? Can students lead a prayer at their school commencement? In a […]
by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Wednesday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding a federal law banning a controversial abortion procedure may dramatically raise abortion’s visibility in the presidential election campaign. The ruling, a victory for anti-abortion advocates, will almost certainly energize both sides in the abortion debate and […]
Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Introduction On Nov. 8, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in two cases that challenge the constitutionality of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The related cases, Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, offer the high court an opportunity to […]
On Feb. 29, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the adherents of a small religious group can continue, for now at least, to import and use an illegal drug in their worship services. The court, in a unanimous decision written by new Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the federal government had not adequately demonstrated […]
On January 18, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a lower federal court had erred in striking down in its entirety a New Hampshire law requiring parental consent for minors seeking an abortion. The case, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, involves a decision by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals to […]
Download the Decision Analysis Download the Legal Backgrounder On January 17, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA) does not give the U.S. attorney general the authority to prohibit Oregon doctors from prescribing lethal doses of drugs to certain terminally ill patients who want to end their own lives. The […]
On November 30, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, a case that challenges New Hampshire’s Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act. Ayotte is the first abortion case the court has taken up in five years, and it is the first such case that […]
On October 5, 2005, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gonzales v. Oregon, a case arising from the conflict between Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and the U.S. attorney general’s interpretation of the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Oregon’s law, which was twice approved by the state’s voters, permits physicians to prescribe […]
Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory on the origins of life, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy is growing in both size and intensity. Recent polls indicate that challenges to Darwinian evolution have substantial support among the American people. According to a July 2005 survey sponsored by […]