Forthcoming chapter: “Violinists, Burglars, People-Seeds, Samaritans, and Reluctant Bone Marrow Donors: Why Do We Need Analogies to Pregnancy in Order to Understand It?”

May 26, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

In late July (2022), Routledge Publishing will be releasing the anthology of original essays: Agency, Pregnancy, and, Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life, edited by Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce Blackshaw, and Daniel Rodger. I am happy to report that I have contributed a chapter to this volume: “Violinists, Burglars, People-Seeds, Samaritans, and Reluctant Bone Marrow Donors: Why Do We Need Analogies to Pregnancy in Order to Understand It?” I have posted a prepublication version of it on my SSRN page here.... Read more

New Working Paper: “What’s So Special About Religious Liberty? Law, Philosophy, and Serving God”

May 26, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

On March 24-25, 2022, I participated in the conference: “Beyond `Defensive Crouch,’ Religious Freedom.” It was hosted by the Liberty & Law Center of the Antonin Law School at George Mason Univeristy. The paper I delivered at the confernce is now available over at SSRN. Entitled “What’s So Special About Religious Liberty? Law, Philosophy, and Serving God,” a final version of it will be published later this year in GMU’s Civil Rights Law Journal. Here is the paper’s abstract: This... Read more

It’s unwise to publicly comment about who is telling the truth in sexual misconduct cases when you’re not privy to all the evidence [Updated]

May 22, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

Update: On May 23, 2022, Princeton University officially fired Joshua Katz, the New York Times reported. Three days later, Dr. Katz’s wife, Solveigh Lucia Gold, published a robust defense of her husband at Bari Weiss’s website Commonsense here. In a piece entitled, “Free Speech and Due Process at Princeton: The Case of Joshua Katz,” Robert P. George, Katz’s colleague in the Princeton politics department, offers a stinging rebuke to the university and its administration. I have known Robby George for over... Read more

My review of Michael Ward’s After Humanity, a guide to C. S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man

May 20, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

Many readers are familiar with C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man. Last summer Word on Fire publised a wonderful companion to the book. Authored by theologian and literary critic, Michael Ward, it is entitled After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man. My review of Professor Ward’s volume just appeared this morning in The Catholic Telegraph. Here’s how it begins: During the height of the Second World War, in February 1943, C. S. Lewis delivered the... Read more

A Billy Joel Passover

April 18, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

HT: Volokh Conspiracy. A delightful musical montage from the group Six13. Read more

Is it Time to Rethink the School Prayer Cases?

April 18, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

Since arriving at Baylor in Fall 2003 I have taught the course “Law and Religion in the United States” sixteen times. (Fifteen times at Baylor and once at the University of Colorado when I was serving there as a visiting professor in 2016-17). Among the many issues we cover is public school prayer. We always read Engel v. Vitale (1962), the first Supreme Court prayer case. Depending on what other topics addressed in the course, we read one or more... Read more

Will Bob Dylan perform “Murder Must Foul” in his March 10 show in Irving, Texas?

February 27, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

Bob Dylan will continue his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour on March 3 in Phoenix. From there, he will travel to Tucson (March 4), Albuquerque (March 6), Lubbock (March 8), and then to Irving (March 10), a suburb of Dallas. During this tour, which began in 2021, Dylan has covered all the songs from his 2020 album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, except two: Crossing the Rubicon and Murder Most Foul. The latter is a 17 minute account of JFK’s... Read more

Review of Maureen Condic’s Untangling twinning: what science tells us about the nature of human embryos

February 27, 2022 By Francis J. Beckwith

The journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics just released online my review of Maureen L. Condic’s book Untangling twinning: what science tells us about the nature of human embryos, published in 2020 by the University of Notre Dame Press. Here’s how the review begins: When does an individual living human organism come into being? If one argues “at conception,” then one must deal with the perplexing problem of monozygotic twinning, which occurs after conception and before the beginning of the primitive streak. At some point during... Read more