We make plans in life with assumptions about our legally recognized rights in the background. For our plans to make sense, the law has to stay consistent over time: if it changes, our plans might no longer make sense. So, what happens when courts change their mind on the law? Should judges consider how people have relied on the law in the past in deciding what the law should be now? Nina Varsava (University of Wisconsin) joins Nicos and George on this episode to discuss the value of reliance in the law, in light of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

How can governments protect exercise of religion while maintaining a secular state? In the second part of our discussion on freedom of religion, Micah Schwartzman  (Virginia) explains how decisions of the US Supreme Court extend religious freedom in ways that undercut the state’s commitment to secularism, by granting exemptions to general laws when those exemptions lack real justification.

When is it wrong to stop people practising their religion? When should exemptions to laws be granted on religious grounds? In a two-part discussion, our special guests Lawrence Sager (UT Austin) and Micah Schwartzman (Virginia) talk with George and Nicos about how to understand freedom of religion. In the first episode, Sager argues that the key responsibility of government is to treat everyone with ‘equal regard’. Government fails to do that when it displays attitudes which devalue individuals because of their religious beliefs.