Conscience Clause
What Would a Good Conscience Clause Look Like? A Catholic University’s Perspective
December 3, 2009
Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom
Eck Hall of Law
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Broadly speaking, the conference is designed to answer three questions:
1. How does the Catholic tradition, which affirms the worth and dignity of all human life, inform the protection of conscience rights in issues involving health care, particularly those surrounding the beginnings of life?
2. Practically speaking, how do Catholicism, law and practical experience shed light on what issues and circumstances provoke the need for protecting the conscience rights of individuals and organizations?
3. How can legislation protect conscience rights effectively?
The panel, which will offer commentary on various questions relating to these issues, consists of Margaret F. Brinig (moderator and discussant), O. Carter Snead, and Father Michael Place. The panel welcomes critical discussion and interchange as it produces a “white paper” on these topics.
Some questions to consider might be:
What are conscience clauses, and why are we worried about them now?
What’s the current state of the law involving them?
How do conscience clauses fit in with the Task Force work generally?
What is the aim of this discussion?
How, in a rather summary way, does the conscience clause problem fit in with the Catholic work on complicity and cooperation with evil?
What should be included in a conscience clause statement emanating from a Catholic University?
How is this different from the rules already in place and those likely to be in the current legislation?
Do women facing crisis pregnancies need special protection?
What kind of clauses would best serve hospitals, doctors, medical students, other health care professionals and pharmacists?
What do conscience clauses have to do with research involving human embryos?
Should government funding be used for abortion and related services?
Have we omitted any areas that should be covered?
What use do we want to make of what we have learned?
Biographies
Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F. Brinig is the Fritz Duda Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame. She also serves as Associate Dean for Faculty Research and is co-Chair of Father Jenkins’ Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life. Her most recent book, Law, Family, and Community, is forthcoming next spring from the University of Chicago Press and, as the title implies, looks at the role societal support, including legal status and religion, plays in families. She is also working, with Professor Nicole Garnett, on a series of studies of the effect of Catholic schools’ closing in Chicago on disorder and crime in the neighborhoods surrounding them. The first paper will be published in the Notre Dame Law Review in 2010. She has written another monograph (From Contract to Covenant: Beyond the Law and Economics of the Family, published by Harvard University Press), several casebooks, two readers, a treatise for lawyers, and more than 80 journal articles and book chapters. Before coming to Notre Dame in 2006, she taught at the University of Iowa for seven years and George Mason University for nearly 25.
With the exception of this academic year, Professor Brinig has taught family law every year since 1976, insurance since the late 1980s, and dispute resolution since 1992. She is an officer of both the International Society of Family Law and the American Association of Law Schools Family and Juvenile Affairs Section. She is equally involved in the field of law and economics, and was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 1991.
She received her B.A. in history from Duke University, her J.D. from Seton Hall University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University. Her family includes four grown daughters, a son who is in his first year at Notre Dame, and a grandchild expected in May.
Reverend Michael D. Place, S.T.D.
Father Michael Place, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, currently is engaged in several writing projects. In addition he is contracted to direct the Ministerial Leadership Preparation Program for Resurrection Health Care. He also is assisting the transition of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative to a new home in the Bernardin Center of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.. From January 2006 to February 2009, Father held leadership positions within Resurrection Health Care, most recently as Senior Vice President for Social Mission and Ministerial Development for Resurrection Health Care, Chicago. Resurrection is a tax-exempt, not-for-profit corporation that serves as the system parent of nine not-for-profit hospitals and numerous nursing, senior living and other health care providers in the Chicago area.
As Senior Vice President, Father provided strategic leadership for two important Resurrection Health Care functions. First, he oversaw the Francis Cardinal George Center for Ministerial Development, a regional center for health care ministry leadership formation. In addition, Father Place oversaw the newly created Social Mission Department, which represented Resurrection in matters of advocacy and public policy at the local, county, state and federal level.
Previously Father Place served for seven years (1998-2005) as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) the national leadership organization of the Catholic health ministry in the United States. His service focused on working with the ministry to strengthen its sense of Catholic identity, promote its advocacy agenda with special attention to the needs of the poor and vulnerable and respond to challenges to the ministries freedom to serve. He also was an advocate for promoting collaboration between the church’s ministries serving as a consultant to the Pro-Life Activities Committee and the Domestic Policy Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as well as subcommittees on Catholic Health Care and Work and Health Care Reform. In addition he was a participating observer on the Board of Trustees of Catholic Charities USA and the Board of the Catholic Health Association of Canada. In the public sector he was active in many organizations such as the Coalition to Protect America’s Health Care and brought the Roman Catholic perspective to the National Consensus Process on Human Sexuality.
In 2002, 2003, and 2004 Father Place was recognized by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare”. He has been invited to speak on health related topics before numerous organizations nationwide and has authored articles for various journals and publications.
Currently he serves as Chair of the International Federation of Catholic Health Institutions (AISAC), which is associated with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry. In that position he works with other Catholic healthcare leaders from across the world to strengthen the healing ministry of Jesus and to assist the Holy Father in his service to the ministry. Father also serves on the Advisory Board of the Health Sector Assembly, the Board of the Common Ground Initiative and the Board of the Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. He also serves as Chair of the Archdiocese of Chicago Finance Council Compensation and Benefits Committee. He also is a Fellow of the Institute of Medicine, Chicago.
Father Place was ordained in 1970 and over the years has had a variety of ministerial responsibilities: associate pastor (70-74); doctoral student (74-77); faculty member of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein Illinois (77-81); Dean of the Athenaeum of Ohio and Academic Dean of Mt. St. Mary Seminary of the West in Cincinnati, Ohio (81-84); and Research Theologian to the Curia and Consul for Policy Development in the Archdiocese of Chicago (85-98). In that position he served as personal theological advisor to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and principle staff person on ecclesial and public policy issues related to Catholic health care.
In addition to a Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) earned at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary Mundelein, Illinois, Father earned a Masters in Ecclesiastical History (M.A.) and then a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) with highest honors from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
O. Carter Snead
Professor Carter Snead joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 2005. His principal area of research is Public Bioethics – the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. His scholarly works have explored issues relating to neuroethics, enhancement, stem cell research, abortion, conscience protections for healthcare providers, and end-of-life decisionmaking. Professor Snead teaches Law & Bioethics, Torts, and Constitutional Criminal Procedure.
In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Professor Snead has provided advice on the legal and public policy dimensions of bioethical questions to officials in all three branches of the U.S. government, and in several intergovernmental fora. Prior to joining the law faculty at Notre Dame, Professor Snead served as General Counsel to The President’s Council on Bioethics (Chaired by Dr. Leon R. Kass), where he was the primary drafter of the 2004 report, “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies.” From 2004 to 2005, Professor Snead led the U.S. government delegation and served as its chief negotiator at the United Nations Culture, Science, and Education Organization (UNESCO) for the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (adopted in October 2005). In 2006, he testified in the U.S. House of Representatives on regulatory questions concerning RU-486 (the abortion pill). From 2007 to 2009, he served (along with Dr. Edmund Pellegrino) as U.S. government’s Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics (CDBI), where he assisted in its efforts to elaborate international instruments and standards for the ethical governance of science and medicine. In conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), he regularly lectures to state and federal judges on the uses of neuroimaging in the courtroom. He was recently appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO to a four-year term on the International Bioethics Committee (IBC), a 36-member body of independent experts that advises member states on bioethics, law, and public policy. The IBC is the only bioethics commission in the world with a global mandate.
Professor Snead received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University (where he was elected to the Order of the Coif), and his B.A. from St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD). He clerked for the Hon. Paul J. Kelly, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
