Registration

Registration details will be forthcoming when available.

Housing

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Call For Paper Proposals

University Faculty for Life invites proposals for academic papers focused on Life Issues and Liberty for our 2025 Life and Learning Conference at the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas, Friday, June 6th and Saturday, June 7th beginning at 1:30 on Friday.

The theme of Life Issues and Liberty raises many multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary questions. One set of questions focus on those working on life's front lines. Is prolife feminism indispensable for changing minds and hearts; is it helpful? What role does faith play in motivating prolife work? Ought prolife work be recognized as a type of religious exercise or an expression of free speech? Do First Amendment liberty rights provide adequate post-Dobbs protection for prolife work, given that so many states have revised their constitutions to guarantee abortion access? Are state governments that fund Planned Parenthood Centers but not pregnancy centers in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause? Are hospitals and professional associations threatening the right of medical professionals to exercise informed judgment on life issues? Are there special legal, moral, or theological challenges confronting individuals and faith-based organizations exercising their religious liberty and conscience rights when opposing contraceptive abortifacients, the killing of prenatal children, or physician assisted suicide? How can the liberty and conscience rights of prolife medical practitioners, students, and institutions such as hospitals best be justified and protected? What are the legal and cultural threats (nationally or internationally) to the liberty rights of prolife citizens who peacefully demonstrate or pray in the public square? What possible responses to these threats could be helpful?

A second set of questions concern the popular argument that while autonomy and liberty rights justify not only a legal right to abortion but also a legal right to assisted suicide, they do not justify a medical professional's right to autonomy in exercising conscientious objection and refusing service. Is this argument simply inconsistent? What are conscience rights and how are they best justified? What is the nature of autonomy? Is it a right protected by the U.S. Constitution? What justifies legal restrictions on autonomy? Is autonomy a liberty right only when exercised morally? Is there an American morality capable of placing parameters on liberty and protecting human life both in the womb and on the hospital bed? Does autonomy in medical decisions require informed consent and is the bar of informed consent being met? What does history teach us about the autonomy of patients and that of medical professionals? Does history contain any lessons about unbounded autonomy? What are the philosophical, theological, medical, political, and legal arguments that the rights to liberty and autonomy can justify neither killing prenatal children nor killing suffering patients?

A third set of questions falling under the theme of Life Issues and Liberty focuses on public policies. How would a national single payer system of health insurance impact the liberty of protecting human life from conception to natural death? Are there any lessons to be learned from the British healthcare system? Does the Dobbs decision restoring the abortion decision to individual states advance or hinder the prolife cause? Does Dobbs undermine or otherwise compromise the unalienable right to life proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence? What new prolife challenges have arisen from the legalization of the abortion pill? Are “brain death” determinations being used as a cover for euthanasia? Are current HIPPA laws hindering the ability of families to protect the life of their loved ones? What is the impact on a nation's culture or political philosophy when the killing of prenatal children or oneself is legalized as a right? Does the history of euthanasia in the Netherlands hold any relevant lessons for Americans?

Besides exploring Life Issues and Liberty, papers focused on any life issue at the beginning of human life and on its natural end are always welcomed.

All proposals should be a maximum of one page and should include the paper's working title, a brief abstract, your institutional affiliation, and your email address. If your proposal is accepted, plan on a 20 minute presentation followed by a 10 minute Q&A. Presentation papers can be considered for publication in our peer-reviewed, open access e-journal, Life and Learning available on our website at uffl.org.

Deadline for priority consideration is 2025 January 22nd and the final deadline for submitting proposals is April 29th. Email proposals to Dr. Bernadette Waterman Ward @ [email protected].

New members are most welcome and can join online.