Some Supreme Court cases in recent years have asserted a constitutional right to religious freedom using the First Amendment’s protection of “the free exercise of religion.” In the case involving the Masterpiece Cakeshop, the owner claimed a religious right to deny service to certain customers. That argument has entered the realm of medicine. In 2019, Donald Trump’s White House asserts that “conscience protections” give medical professionals the right, on religious grounds, to refuse to perform, or inform about, or refer patients to practitioners willing to carry out procedures such as abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide. The free exercise of religion is the right to hold whatever religious beliefs one accepts, to worship with co-religionists, to adhere to the same moral precepts as they do . . . or not (because religious freedom also includes freedom from religion). Except in the mentally ill, all adults have an innate ability to distinguish right from wrong, that is, a conscience. Conscience is not the monopoly of religious persons; it is characteristic of humanity. What, then, is special about religion? In addition to creedal statements about the nature of ultimate reality and narratives about inspired leaders, religions enjoin some behaviors (prayer, charity, pilgrimage) and forbid others (idolatry, blasphemy, murder, stealing, lying, adultery, banned food or drink). Some religions actively seek to expand through missionary work, conquest, or by physically eliminating adherents to other faiths. Religions often exclude from their own community people who modify or challenge their teachings, ignore their practices, or perform prohibited acts. Non-conformists are to be shunned. They are denounced as apostates, backsliders, or heretics, and stigmatized as damnable. Often, they are persecuted and sometimes executed. In the U. S., legal enforcement of these disciplinary provisions would deprive individuals of rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Continue Reading