Ryan T. Anderson

President

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

He is the author or co-author of five books, including the just-released Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. Previous books include When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender MomentTruth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious FreedomWhat Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. He is the co-editor of A Liberalism Safe for Catholicism? Perspectives from “The Review of Politics.”

Anderson’s research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in two Supreme Court cases.

He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and he received his doctoral degree in political philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation was titled: “Neither Liberal Nor Libertarian: A Natural Law Approach to Social Justice and Economic Rights.”

Anderson has made appearances on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox News. His work has been published by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Harvard Health Policy Review, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public PolicyFirst Things, the Claremont Review of Books, and National Review.

He is the John Paul II Teaching Fellow in Social Thought at the University of Dallas, a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University, and a Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, as well as the Founding Editor of Public Discourse, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.

For 9 years he was the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy and political science at Christendom College, and a Visiting Fellow at the Veritas Center at Franciscan University. He has also served as an assistant editor of First Things.

Follow him on Twitter at @RyanTAnd. For his latest essays and videos, you can follow his public Facebook page.

Click here to download a hi-res version of this photo for media and promotional use. Photo credit David Hills.

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The Truth about Alabama’s Ruling on IVF

Ryan T. Anderson

The Alabama Supreme Court held that a statute protecting minors (including, as precedent held, embryos in the womb) contained no exception for embryos outside the womb.

Articles

First Things / February 28, 2024

To Defend True Freedom, We Need to Know the Truth

Ryan T. Anderson

To ensure that the future of freedom is bright, I offer three suggestions: Defend both liberty and limits, without embracing…

Fusion / September 7, 2023

Republicans Can Reset the Abortion Debate

Ryan T. Anderson

Don’t be afraid to defend the unborn, but be prepared to accept incremental progress.

Articles

The Wall Street Journal / April 18, 2023

Loving Those Caught in Gender Ideology: The Ethics and Metaphysics of Sexual Identity

Ryan T. Anderson

How to know and love those struggling with the cultural phenomenon of sexual identity.

Articles

Christ Over All / February 15, 2023

The Joy of Life in a Post-Roe World

Ryan T. Anderson

The Church’s no to abortion is because of a fundamental yes to life.

Articles

Word On Fire / January 19, 2023

Mama Shot the Deer!

Ryan T. Anderson

Cultivation of a family culture is a long-term process. It’s cyclical, generational, and hopefully generative.

Articles

The Lamp / December 16, 2022

Ryan Anderson’s Christmas Book List

Ryan T. Anderson

From Claremont: In the bleak midwinter, long, long ago (the 2010s), we at the CRB had a tradition of inviting…

Articles

Claremont Review of Books / December 14, 2022

Defending marriage: Will Senate Republicans display courage and uphold truth?

Ryan T. Anderson

The Senate “Respect for Marriage Act” pays lip service to religious liberty and conscience rights.

Articles

FOX News / November 21, 2022

How the Eugenics Movement Made Race-Based Abortions Normal

Ryan T. Anderson

Planned Parenthood condemns sex-, race-, and disability-based discrimination in every other context, except when it occurs in the womb.

Articles

American Greatness / June 28, 2022

Why the Arguments about “Bodily Autonomy” and “Forced Birth” Fail to Justify Abortion

Ryan T. Anderson

Examining the bodily autonomy argument for abortion highlights a crucial pro-life point: abortion is wrong not only because strangers shouldn’t kill each other but also and especially because parents have special obligations to their children, and it isn’t governmental overreach to require parents to fulfill those obligations.

Articles

Public Discourse / June 23, 2022

Making Abortion Illegal and Unthinkable

Ryan T. Anderson

It will require much more than the courts.

Articles

National Review / June 23, 2022

We Must Acknowledge That Abortion Harms Women

Ryan T. Anderson

It is easier to defend abortion if you pretend that women who choose abortion are always happy with their decision.

Articles

National Review / June 21, 2022