originally published 2/1/2003

Russell Hittinger explains the legal history behind the development of the “right to privacy” and how that legal reasoning was used in landmark cases involving abortion and physician-assisted suicide. He describes how certain legal cases resulted in the justification of a near-absolute individual autonomy, one which trumps any universal moral or ethical judgments. The bottom line, Hittinger argues, is that secular liberalism is forcing us to confront the question “What kind of private, consensual act cannot be performed, and for what reason?” Our courts are coming up empty in response, as they have ceded to individual citizens the authority to decide who lives and who dies. Hittinger argues that the implications for society are grave. He is the author of The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World. This interview was first published on Volume 60 of the Journal.

33 minutes

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