Is there a role for the expression of religious views in public policy debates in a liberal democracy? Or do religion and politics make too dangerous a mixture? When difficult issues related to bioethics arise, such as whether to limit uses of the new reproductive technologies or whether to outlaw the genetic enhancement of children, can religious voices appropriately help lawmakers develop relevant policy?

Liberal thought has tended to maintain that religion is too divisive to provide a constructive voice in public policy debates within democratic pluralistic societies. Because the beliefs of various religious traditions are intimately bound up with views of human good not shared by others and not supported by publicly accessible reasons, they are likely to conflict with one another and with secular thought, the liberal argument goes. Religious belief therefore is said seriously to threaten social stability. Those who adopt political liberalism¹ generally assign liberty priority over social welfare. Accordingly, any improvements in social welfare cannot be brought about by sacrificing individual freedom. Political values integral to publicly accepted belief—such as individual freedom, equality, and toleration—are best supported, according to political liberalism, when religious beliefs are barred from public policy debates within democratic societies.

This view of the role—or lack of a role—for religious belief in the development of public policy in pluralistic democracies is grounded in several leaps of faith. Among them is that public policy can be based on publicly shared premises and publicly accessible reasons without resorting to comprehensive views of human good. Another is that allowing religious beliefs into discussions about public policy is tantamount to requiring that public policy be justified on the basis of those beliefs. These assumptions are wrong, I will argue. I will maintain that to eliminate comprehensive religious views of human good from the creation of public policy is not only to misunderstand the degree to which religious belief permeates secular thought, but also unfairly and unwisely to exclude religious views from public discussion in pluralistic democratic societies. I will illustrate these claims by referring to a specific question of public policy that falls within the province of bioethics: the proper limits of the uses of the new reproductive technologies.

LIBERALISM AND THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS VOICES IN DEVELOPING PUBLIC POLICY
Richard Rorty has advocated privatizing religion, "making it seem bad taste to bring religion into discussions of public policy."² Citizens should provide secular reasons for advocating public policies, Robert Audi declares, because "conflicting secular ideas, even when firmly held, can often be blended and harmonized in the crucible of free discussion: but a clash of gods is like a meeting of an irresistible force with an immovable object."³ John Rawls has taken a similar position,⁴ stating that "religious, philosophical, and moral convictions . . . are part of what we call 'nonpublic identity,' matters that citizens may deal with in their 'personal affairs.'"⁵ In recent writings, however, he appears to move toward greater accommodation with religious views and allows some to enter public debate under certain conditions.⁶ This modification of a long-held position by a leading advocate of political liberalism is significant and worth further attention.

Rawls observes in the first edition of Political Liberalism that many religious and philosophical views held by citizens in liberal democracies include reasonable, comprehensive doctrines about the good life. These views conflict with one another in irreconcilable ways, however, and so there cannot be general agreement on a single one among all citizens. Consequently, to avoid disruption of the democratic political order, it is often necessary for citizens to put aside their religious views when engaging in debate about important public policy issues. Citizens have a basic "duty of civility" to explain to each other how the principles and policies they advocate can be supported by the values of public reason.⁷ Religious views are not a part of public reason.

By public reason Rawls means the body of generally accepted common sense beliefs and ways of reasoning, as well as uncontroversial scientific conclusions.⁸ It is "the reason of the public."⁹ Public reason specifies certain basic rights, liberties, and opportunities, assigns them priority, and affirms measures assuring citizens the means to make effective use of them.¹⁰ "There are many liberalisms," Rawls states, ". . . and therefore many forms of public reason . . . Of these justice as fairness [Rawls's theory of justice], whatever its merits, is but one."¹¹ A liberal conception of justice will provide substantive principles of justice, as well as principles of reasoning and rules of evidence in light of which citizens using public reason can decide whether the principles of justice apply to a question; if they do, lawmakers can then develop policies that satisfy them.¹²

Rawls points out that public reason rests on an ideal conception of citizenship in a constitutional democracy.¹³ It is not an ideal for the whole of citizens' lives, but for their participation in development of public policy and law. Moreover, within the political sphere, "the limits imposed by public reason do not apply to all political questions but only to those involving what we may call 'constitutional essentials' and questions of basic justice."¹⁵

In debating issues of public policy, citizens are to employ reasons that are accessible to all reasonable fellow citizens and that do not rely on any particular world view, whether religious or secular. Considerations about which there is reasonable disagreement in a democratic pluralistic society, such as those presented in comprehensive religious and secular doctrines, are not part of public reason. Therefore, they must be barred from public debate.15

DIFFICULTIES WITH RAWLS'S VIEW OF PUBLIC REASON
Rawls's notion of public reason and its exclusion of religious views has been criticized on several counts. It is important to point out two major difficulties here. The first is that if public reason in the past had provided grounds for public policy decisions in a liberal society, and if religious beliefs had been excluded from public reason, slavery would never have been abolished, suffrage would not have been expanded to women, and the civil rights movement would not have been validated. All of these changes took place when the prevailing public reason was challenged by religious voices seeking justice and was overthrown.

To meet this criticism, Rawls has more recently introduced the view that reasonable comprehensive doctrines may be introduced in public political discussions provided that, "in due course, proper political reasons—and not reasons given solely by comprehensive doctrines—are presented" to support them.¹⁶ He states that the idea of public reason "neither criticizes nor attacks any comprehensive doctrine, religious or nonreligious, except insofar as that doctrine is incompatible with the essentials of public reason and a democratic polity."¹⁷ This revision, however, does not resolve the difficulty that it was designed to address. That is because Rawls would require citizens with comprehensive religious views to engage in self-fulfilling prophecies about whether their views will be adopted as a part of public reason "in due course." Thus, their "duty of civility" to speak up or to be silent depends on their powers of prediction. If the civil rights movement had collapsed "in due course," rather than prevailed, on this view, its policies would not have entered into public reason and its leaders would earlier have unknowingly violated their "civic duty" by speaking out against prevalent public reason.

This points to a second difficulty with Rawls's view that is especially relevant to this discussion. When religious believers are denied the right to speak out in public policy debates because their views conflict with those that are commonly accepted as part of public reason, their freedom and equality are violated. Rawls responds that it is sometimes right to deny citizens' religious liberty, but when we do this we must give them reasons they can not only understand, "as Servetus could understand why Calvin wanted to burn him at the stake," but also might reasonably be expected to accept.¹⁸ This, however, does not justify the denial of religious liberty that Rawls requires, for the public reason surrounding Calvin did include reasons for burning Servetus that most others at that time (although not Servetus!) could reasonably have been expected to accept. Moreover, while those who are not religious may find religious justifications for a policy unconvincing, it is not clear why hearing those justifications voiced in public policy discussions violates their freedom and equality. Indeed, not hearing them would seem to violate their freedom and equality in that it would deny them the opportunity, as equals, to learn of views that might offer them new insights and approaches. By excluding comprehensive religious and other views from political debate, public reason can be used to weaken fundamental liberal political values that are so important to Rawls's basic theory of justice. Thus, not only the freedom and equality of religious believers and others who hold comprehensive views of human good are put at risk by his position on the admissibility of religious views in public policy debates, but political liberalism itself.

TESTING RAWLS'S THEORY USING ROBERTSON ON REPRODUCTION
Let us consider what we would lose were we, following Rawls, to omit comprehensive views that putatively do not express public reason from public policy debates by looking at the question whether the uses of the new reproductive technologies should be limited as a matter of public policy. This is an appropriate subject of inquiry, according to Rawls's theory, for it involves a fundamental question related to the rights and liberties of citizenship and the political value of "the ordered reproduction of political society over time, including the family in some form."¹⁹

The liberal tradition to which Rawls adheres would leave the individual presumptively free to make whatever choices about the use of the new reproductive technologies he or she prefers. John Robertson is a leading advocate of this view. Although Robertson has not declared himself a Rawlsian, and Rawls has not addressed whether he is a Robertsonian, they take similar basic liberal paths, albeit with important differences. Therefore, it will be useful to examine briefly the thought of Robertson with an eye to analyzing the import of Rawls's concept of "public reason" for the expression of comprehensive doctrines in the course of public policy debate.

Robertson maintains that individuals have a right to choose various forms of assisted reproduction and methods of "quality control" over gametes, embryos, and fetuses because doing so offers them a way to obtain the children they want.²⁰ Since reproduction is closely tied to the private conception that would-be parents have of what constitutes a meaningful life,²¹ it is not children in general that they seek but children with characteristics that will fulfill their progenitors' desires and give meaning to their life projects. Therefore, he claims they have not just a right to engage in reproductive activities, but also a right to "acquire that sort of child that would make one willing to bring a child into the world in the first place."²²

Robertson circumscribes individual choices of methods of reproduction by the need to avoid substantial harm to assignable individuals. In the absence of harm to others, he maintains, public policy that interferes with the right to reproduce noncoitally is indefensible. He adds that should the resulting children be injured by use of the new reproductive technologies, they would have no grounds for complaint, for "if the child has no way to be born or raised free of that harm, a person is not injuring the child by enabling her to be born in the circumstances of concern."²³ Thus, harm to children born of the new reproductive technologies does not ultimately serve as a deterrent to fulfillment of parental desires in Robertson's view, despite his position that harm to others provides legitimate grounds for restricting individual choices.²⁴

Nor do social concerns that attend the use of assisted reproduction—such as those about the radical redesign of the family, the commodification of reproduction, or the renewal of eugenics—justify limiting the choices of would-be parents. Such concerns, according to Robertson, are "symbolic" ones that focus on "the constitutive meaning of actions regarding prenatal life, family, maternal gestation, and respect for persons over which people in a secular, pluralistic society often differ."²⁵ These are either "too speculative or too moralistic" to justify governmental interference with what are private choices.²⁶

Robertson's theory, despite its disclaimers to the contrary, presumes a comprehensive doctrine of the human good. Its focus is on the rights and interests of adults who want to have children; these rights and interests are intimately associated with their good. That good is best achieved by fulfilling their significant desires and private life plans. Indeed, the desires of these adults drive the use of reproductive technologies to a point where they take precedence over the good of the resulting children, the family, and society. Would-be parents are viewed as isolated individuals whose connections to others are solely those of their own choice. The needs of the children who result from the new reproductive technologies do not figure prominently in this view. This becomes clear from the claim that would-be parents should not draw back from using the new reproductive technologies even if so doing might harm the resulting children. Nor are the needs of the community taken into account in Robertson's approach. Scant attention is given to the amelioration of the negative impact on the family or society that the new reproductive technologies might produce. Instead, considerations of familial and social good are dismissed as symbolic concerns that need not be addressed in a secular, pluralistic society.

Reproduction, in this view, is reduced to the acquisition of reproductive materials by individuals and their subsequent use. This approach presupposes an atomistic view of the self that fails to recognize, as Rawls does, that individual lives are embedded in social relations and shared projects. Thus, there is little attention to procreation as relationally grounded in the intimate association between persons who are distinct and yet, at least ideally, intertwined in mutual love and affection. Instead, what it is to have children and to be a parent is governed by contract theory; producing a child is an endeavor to be negotiated between individuals at arms' length. Thus, reproduction is abstracted from its relational context and social dimensions and made a way of doing whatever is necessary to obtain a desired product—in this case, a living human being.

Does this view fall within the scope of Rawls's public reason? Does Robertson's comprehensive doctrine express the reasoning of free and equal citizens regarding values that are "proper political values," according to Rawls, such as the state's interest in the family and human life and the orderly reproduction of society over time?²⁷ If not, will it do so "in due course"?

At first glance, it would seem that Robertson's view does not capture the predominant public reason and—since Rawls's approach, as noted above, forces one to predict—does not appear likely to do so "in due course." This is because Robertson's vision of the good seems at great variance with the generally accepted view of what it means to have children and to seek their good, a view that seems to have great and lasting force in our society. Robertson's view, consequently, would not appear to qualify for admission into debate about public policy directed toward reproduction, according to Rawls's theory. To explain more fully why this is the case, we must first turn to the reasoning of citizens who are directly or indirectly indebted to western religious traditions concerning the meaning of reproduction and the good of children and then compare their thinking with Robertson's line of thought about these issues.

CONTRASTING WESTERN RELIGIOUS VIEWS ABOUT PROCREATION
Several western religious traditions value individual dignity and choice, as does Robertson, but see these within a broader familial and social context. Not only the good of the individual, but that of the family and of the community, are of great significance to them. These traditions, confined here to Judaism and Christianity, address the state's interest in the family and human life and the orderly reproduction of society over time, values important to Rawls's view of public reason. Furthermore, they attend to the social nature of individuals, whose importance Rawls recognizes in such statements as that "it is a feature of human sociability that we are by ourselves but parts of what we might be."²⁸

According to these religious traditions, having children is not purely a private matter but is a shared endeavor that involves responsibilities to the children who are born, to the family, and to the community. Procreation is a relational process, in that it involves establishing an intimate association between parents and between parents and children, and also a social one, for it introduces new members into society whose potential needs and capacities have significant social implications. Moreover, the focus in these religious traditions is on the needs of the children themselves. This can be seen more fully by briefly considering the approaches of Judaism and Christianity in particular to having children.

Procreation, in Judaism, is inseparable from social goods and relations. Having children, forming a family, and, more broadly, a people who as heirs will prosper is essential to Jewish thought.²⁹ Procreation is the primary purpose of marriage in the Hebraic tradition.³⁰ This is reflected in the fact that the command to procreate, which is found early in Genesis in the Priestly account of creation, is the first of the biblical commands. Companionship is also important in marriage, as the Jahwist account of creation in which Eve is created as company for Adam reveals, but not as significant as procreation. Having children is the way to social identity and to the survival of Israel as a people. This is why, when a man and woman are married in Judaism, they sign a contract in which they agree to perform their respective parts so that children will be born and, in turn, bear the identity of the parents and the people of whom they are a part into the future.³¹ Having children, cherishing them, and nurturing them to become members of the community and carry on its traditions is of signal importance in Judaism.

Within the early Christian tradition, marriage is more closely tied to companionship than to having children or the formation of a people.³² At several points in the Gospels, Jesus indicates that companionship takes precedence over procreation in marriage.³³ This leads Pagels to observe that:

It has been argued that, to the contrary, the Christian tradition teaches that the sanctification of sexuality requires that marriage should be open to procreation.³⁵ This position derives from Augustine's view of sexual desire, which he claims emerges only after the Fall as God's crowning punishment for Adam and Eve's disobedience.³⁶ This remnant of his earlier Manichaeism leads Augustine to reject sexual union as an end in itself and to view all sex as illicit unless excused by the intent to procreate. Bringing children into the world and caring for them can abrogate the evil of sexual desire, according to Augustine. Although Augustine's influence on the Christian tradition is incalculable, his analysis of sexuality is not consistent with scripture or with other strands of the Christian tradition, which frame sex within a generous love of neighbor.³⁷

Moreover, Christian teachings distinguish between contract and covenant, making the latter the foundation of marriage. That is, marriage is not grounded in an agreement in which something is done in order to realize something else, but is a matter of mutual commitment between those involved regardless of the consequences.³⁸ Accordingly, a man and woman take each other in marriage "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death."³⁹ Couples share in fulfillment now in their love for one another, rather than by gaining identity in the future through their children. Should they be blessed with children as a result of their mutual commitment, they are to acknowledge and care for them on behalf of God, moving into a future marked by mutual love between parents and children.

In both Judaism and Christianity, couples are gifted with children, rather than entitled to them. Children are cherished not only as symbols of the growth of a nation or of the mutual commitment of couples to one another, but also as beings with their own integrity and uniqueness. Parents are not creators but procreators, meaning that children are not their possessions, products, or projects, but their trusts. Thus, these traditions would reject the right enunciated by Robertson to acquire a child specifically tailored to one's own choices. Instead, children are beings with a fundamental human dignity who are not to be acquired or especially designed according to parental desires.

The way in which children are brought into the world, for these traditions, is a matter of social, as well as individual concern. For them, limitations on reproductive interventions should be set not just on the basis of avoiding harm to others, but also on grounds of a shared sense of what humankind requires in procreation and the family. The potential of the new reproductive technologies radically to reconceive the family argues against treating their use solely as a private matter for these religious traditions. From their perspective, if we are to develop fundamentally new understandings of the family, we should do so reflectively as a community, rather than by chance as isolated individuals. Even so, the Jewish and Christian traditions would agree with the view of political liberalism that there are good reasons to preserve a sphere of procreative liberty and to grant parents wide discretion in determining how to secure their children's well-being. Thus, these western religious traditions, despite their differences, agree on certain ways of thinking about the meaning of procreation, what we owe to our children, the value of the family, and our responsibilities as members of society.

IMPORT OF THESE VIEWS FOR RAWLS'S THEORY OF PUBLIC REASON
If we consider the ways in which citizens discuss the values surrounding uses of the new reproductive technologies in public policy debates, Robertsonian concepts do not predominate. Having a child is not viewed as the acquisition of a made-to-order product designed according to parents' desires and tastes. Ordinary citizens do not dismiss possible poor outcomes that might occur for children resulting from the new reproductive technologies as an acceptable price of being born. The public and policymakers are increasingly concerned about the needs of such children, as indicated by recent congressional preparations to ban cloning in order to avoid damaging the resulting children.⁴⁰ Moreover, there is strong concern about the renewal of eugenics, potentially emerging from the unlimited use of new reproductive technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis to avoid having impaired or unwanted children and of germline interventions to enhance children in future generations. Public reason rejects the view that parents should be allowed to "acquire" children by special order, out of fear that this would reinforce discriminatory stereotypes and privilege the well-to-do. All of these factors combine to suggest that Robertson's view does not appear to meet the requirement of Rawls's modified view that public reason should express the current or future reasoning of free and equal citizens regarding "proper political values." Robertson's view, consequently, seems at great variance with those that are a part of public reason.

The reasoning expressed by those voices that are predominant in public debates about the "orderly reproduction of society over time" presumes many values that are directly or indirectly indebted to western religious traditions. We hear that to have children is to receive a gift or a blessing, not to acquire a product. Ordinary citizens and public policymakers maintain that would-be parents have significant responsibilities to future children, the family, and society itself. Children have equal dignity and worth, they declare, and are not to be subjected to harm should the means used to bring them into the world threaten this. These values, which are "compatible with the essentials of public reason and a democratic polity," and therefore meet Rawls's requirement for admission into public debate, are directly and indirectly indebted to Western religious traditions for their origins. Equality, for instance, is moored in the Western religious notion of the equality of kings and servants before God. The dignity of human beings is rooted in their creation in the "image of God." Western religious traditions, therefore, appear to express the reasoning of free and equal citizens regarding proper political values and thereby to conform to Rawls's requirements for eligibility for incorporation in public reason.

This leads to the peculiar conclusion that, according to Rawls, Robertson's view of the limits of the uses of the new reproductive technologies, the leading liberal view, should be barred from public policy discussions because it is not a part of public reason. Rawls's view also implies that religious views should be among those heard in such discussions because they are a part of public reason. Yet it seems wrong to exclude Robertson's view from the public policy arena on grounds that it does not represent prevailing public reason. His thought provides an important approach to questions about whether limits should be placed on uses of the new reproductive technologies, an approach that reasonably informs public debate and should be heard. When predominant opinion is allowed to determine which values will undergird public policy, the views of those who are not among prevailing voices, such as Robertson, will be placed in jeopardy before they have even had a chance to be heard.

More broadly, if public reason alone is to give "a reasonable public answer to all, or to nearly all, questions involving the constitutional essentials and basic questions of justice,"⁴¹ it must be sufficiently thick and rich to do so. However, since public reason, according to Rawls, does not include any comprehensive doctrines, it is unclear how it can have content enough to provide reasonable public answers.⁴² Moreover, if Rawls's later refinement of political liberalism is to guarantee social stability, the goal that led him to exclude religious voices from public space earlier, it must now include religious voices of diverse sorts—even those that do not appear consonant with "our most firmly held convictions."⁴³ Those who are muzzled from speaking in public debates about values, religious or secular, that do not currently appear to draw on our shared fund of publicly accepted convictions, will present a threat to the very social stability that Rawls hopes to preserve.

In his concern to protect individual freedom from the collective will by excluding religious views that are not clearly embraced by public reason, Rawls is in danger of discarding that very freedom. Aristotle maintained that the very existence of the polis depends on the human power of speech, the ability of individuals to set forth their understandings of "the just and the unjust."⁴⁴ Rather than adopt Rawls's "method of avoidance," in which nobody speaks in public debates about the implications of their overarching visions without first attempting to ascertain whether these are currently part of public reason or will be in the future, we must include a wide variety of such voices in policy discussions. Only in this way can we carry on mutually significant debates about how the world we share should be shaped and structured. Allowing religious beliefs to be included among voices heard in a democratic pluralistic republic will increase our understanding of diverse approaches to pressing questions and heighten our sensitivity to the range of reasons and beliefs on which people within that polity rely. If we are to sustain the democratic practices and respect for individual freedom that are at the foundation of our public life, we should not exclude ideas and values grounded in comprehensive views, whether those of the majority or the minority, of religious or secular voices, from public discussions.

NOTES
1. For discussion of their positions, see Michael J. Perry, Morality, Politics, & Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 57–76; and Love and Power: The Proper Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 8–28.