Events

On October 11, 2012 at 12:10 p.m., Columbia Law School will host an hour-long lunchtime debate on "The Obamacare Contraception Mandate & Religious Liberty" in Jerome Greene Hall Room 103.

Greg Baylor of the Alliance Defending Freedom and Aram Schvey from the Center for Reproductive Rights will debate the Affordable Care Act and its contraception mandate, which requires most employers to include free birth control coverage in their health plans, including some religious organizations. As one of the most controversial aspects of the Affordable Care Act, the implementation will impact American religious groups and their employees nationwide. These two nationally recognized experts will debate the constitutionality of the contraception mandate as part of a series of debates hosted by the Federalist Society with funding provided by the John Templeton Foundation.

Greg Baylor, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom in Washington D.C., has been an active litigator in First Amendment Freedom of Religion cases since 1994. Earning his J.D. from Duke University School of Law in 1990, Baylor went on to serve as director of the Christian Legal Society for Law & Religious Freedom for more than a decade before joining the Alliance Defending Freedom in 2009.

Aram Schvey currently serves as Policy Counsel for Foreign Policy and Human Rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Before assuming his current post, Schvey served as Supervising Attorney and Teaching Fellow at the International Women's Human Rights Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, his alma mater. Schvey also served as Litigation Counsel at Americans United for Separation of Church and State from 2006 to 2008, where he litigated several cases under the First Amendment's Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.

Prof. Harold Edgar of Columbia Law School will moderate. The event organizers are soliciting questions from the public in advance of the debate for Prof Edgar, which should be sent to HealthCareDebate@fed-soc.org.