ABSTRACT
This book attempts to get to the very core of determining what action is permissible or not permissible in terms of the manifestation of religious belief from the vista of an ethical framework. Drilling into that core entails looking at the question of life itself, what constitutes that life, and what drives the permissibility of action. To do this means interrogating the essence of life and its potential sacredness, inviolability, and the actions or non-actions that potentially compromise that sacred space. Whether life, however, holds within it that sanctity, or should hold within it, is central to this exploration of the intersection between law, medicine, and religion. Thus, there is a need to explicitly focus attention on a religiously inspired principle that has been used in the courts and that holds within it a very explicit vindication of a sanctity of life perspective.
