Abortion laws, religious beliefs and the first amendment.

The constitutional controversies surrounding abortion-related legislation now include the Religion Clauses of the first amendment. The legislation being challenged, by either restricting the Medicaid funding of abortions or regulating the performance of abortions , embodies anti-abortion interests. Arguments have been advanced that religious beliefs and values have played a predominant role in the enactment of such legislation and that the legislation therefore violates the Establishment Clause.' Challengers have also argued that such legislation violates the Free Exercise Clause' by placing burdens on women with respect to any religious decision they may make to have an abortion. These arguments raise new questions both as to the scope of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses as well as to the nature of the underlying legislative concerns regarding abortion. A threshold question is whether religious beliefs and values have in fact played a predominant role in the enactment of legislation reflecting anti-abortion sentiment. If legislators did have religious reasons for enacting such legislation, then the issue becomes whether underlying religious values entail a violation of the Establishment Clause. Another Establishment Clause question presented by the arguments is whether the politicial divisiveness test, which is concerned with the avoidance of political division along religious lines, is applicable in instances other than those involving the institutional entanglement of government and religion. Relating to the Free Exercise Clause, an inquiry is needed as to whether an indigent woman has a constitutional right to have an abortion governmentally funded because of the conscientious nature of the abortion decision. This note seeks to articulate and analyze both the arguments being presented and the new questions these arguments raise. The