• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertising
  • Join PGM
Pepperdine Graphic

Pepperdine Graphic

  • News
    • Good News
  • Sports
    • Hot Shots
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
    • Advice Column
    • Waves Comic
  • GNews
    • Staff Spotlights
    • First and Foremost
    • Allgood Food
    • Pepp in Your Step
    • DunnCensored
    • Beyond the Statistics
  • Special Publications
    • 5 Years In
    • L.A. County Fires
    • Change in Sports
    • Solutions Journalism: Climate Anxiety
    • Common Threads
    • Art Edition
    • Peace Through Music
    • Climate Change
    • Everybody Has One
    • If It Bleeds
    • By the Numbers
    • LGBTQ+ Edition: We Are All Human
    • Where We Stand: One Year Later
    • In the Midst of Tragedy
  • Currents
    • Currents Spring 2025
    • Currents Fall 2024
    • Currents Spring 2024
    • Currents Winter 2024
    • Currents Spring 2023
    • Currents Fall 2022
    • Spring 2022: Moments
    • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
    • Spring 2021: Beauty From Ashes
    • Fall 2020: Humans of Pepperdine
    • Spring 2020: Everyday Feminism
    • Fall 2019: Challenging Perceptions of Light & Dark
  • Podcasts
    • On the Other Hand
    • RE: Connect
    • Small Studio Sessions
    • SportsWaves
    • The Graph
    • The Melanated Muckraker
  • Print Editions
  • NewsWaves
  • Sponsored Content
  • Digital Deliveries
  • DPS Crime Logs

Law School Hosts Discussion on Abortion and Religious Freedom

October 3, 2024 by H.L. Mccullough

Professor Jessie Hill, (pictured on the right), professor of law and associate dean for Research and Faculty Development at Case Western Reserve University, discusses abortion rights and religious freedom. Pepperdine professor Michael Helfand, (pictured on the left), the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion, moderated the discussion at the Caruso School of Law on Aug. 29. Photo by H.L. McCullough
Professor Jessie Hill, (pictured on the right), professor of law and associate dean for Research and Faculty Development at Case Western Reserve University, discusses abortion rights and religious freedom. Pepperdine professor Michael Helfand, (pictured on the left), the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion, moderated the discussion at the Caruso School of Law on Aug. 29. Photo by H.L. McCullough

The Nootbaar and Ken Starr Institutes organized and held a lively discussion on abortion restrictions and reproductive rights, particularly on how several ongoing cases across the country relate to constitutional law and religious freedom at the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law with around 50 attendees.

Hill referenced the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization the court ruled in favor of Mississippi state law, banning almost all abortions after 15 weeks. The Supreme Court found that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution or is an essential part of United States history. Since then, the issue of abortion and religious rights has gained more attention, Hill said.

“We generally associate abortion with the liberal left and religion with the conservative right. Now we have a marriage of political ideas,” Hill said, while pointing to partisan policy and politics as a core reason.

In the Q&A portion of the event discussion, a first-year law student from Kentucky, referenced the Cameron v. EMW’s Women Surgical Center case.

He asked how federal and state jurisdiction would play out in abortion and religious rights cases across the country.

Cases in the next couple of years will struggle to reach a final verdict due to “a stumbling of procedural orders,” rooted in how religious freedom should be interpreted by various states across the country, Hill said.

Both political sides of the argument need help to break down what religious freedom is and the scope to which it applies to abortion bans, Hill said. She said that different religious communities do not agree upon when the time of life starts, some argue it’s during conception and others argue at the time of birth.

Religious communities are struggling with agreed exceptions to potential abortion bans, Hill said.

“Religious freedom doctrine has to be broken down to be improved,” Hill said.

__________________

Follow the Graphic on X: @PeppGraphic

Email H.L. McCullough: hubert.mccullough@pepperdine.edu

Filed Under: News Tagged With: abortion, Caruso Law School, H.L. McCullough, law, law school students, pepperdine, Pepperdine Graphic, Religion, religious beliefs, religious freedom

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Featured
  • News
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
  • Sports
  • Podcasts
  • G News
  • COVID-19
  • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
  • Everybody Has One
  • Newsletters

Footer

Pepperdine Graphic Media
Copyright © 2025 ยท Pepperdine Graphic

Contact Us

Advertising
(310) 506-4318
peppgraphicadvertising@gmail.com

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
(310) 506-4311
peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com
Student Publications
Pepperdine University
24255 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA 90263
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube