# Ethics and Public Policy Center The **Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC)** is a Washington, D.C. think tank founded in 1976 that operates as the **principal religious-conservative policy shop** in the U.S. — specifically focused on the intersection of religious faith, judicial nominations, bioethics, marriage and family policy, religious liberty, and constitutional originalism. EPPC's distinctive function in the conservative ecosystem is **judicial-pipeline strategy and religious-conservative legal scholarship**. Where the [[Federalist Society]] operates the systematic-personnel-curation function for the broader conservative legal movement, EPPC is the **issue-development and judicial-confirmation-strategy node** — it produces the doctrinal scholarship that the eventual judicial nominees will draw on, and runs the public-facing strategic communications during high-profile confirmation fights. ## Founding and Trajectory EPPC was founded in 1976 by Ernest Lefever, a former Brookings scholar and ethicist who had been forced out of the Carter administration's State Department nomination process. Lefever positioned EPPC as an explicit response to what he saw as the "ethics" framing being monopolized by the religious left in the 1970s — a counterpart institution that would advance a religious-conservative ethical framework on policy issues. The org grew significantly under [[George Weigel]]'s presidency (1989–1996) and Ed Capano's leadership in the 2000s. Under Ryan T. Anderson's presidency (since 2021), EPPC has become a particularly prominent voice in the post-Dobbs reproductive-rights fight (especially around IVF, contraception, and abortion pills), the anti-trans legislative push, and judicial-confirmation strategy. ## Programmatic Focus EPPC operates several research programs, including: - **HHS Accountability Project** — pressure campaigns on the Department of Health and Human Services, especially around abortion, gender-affirming care, and religious-exemption questions - **Religious Liberty** — research on Title VII, RFRA cases, and constitutional religious-liberty doctrine - **Bioethics** — IVF, surrogacy, gender-transition medicine, end-of-life care - **Constitutional Studies** — judicial philosophy, originalism, executive power - **Catholic Studies** — religious-conservative scholarship from a specifically Catholic perspective - **Strategic Communications** — high-profile op-ed and TV strategy during judicial confirmations, [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]-style legal fights, and culture-war flashpoints ## Notable Personnel EPPC has been the institutional home of a dense cluster of religious-conservative scholars and operators: - **Ed Whelan** — long-running EPPC scholar; principal public-facing operator on judicial-confirmation fights from the Roberts confirmation (2005) through the Kavanaugh confirmation (2018); among the most consequential conservative legal strategists of the past two decades - **Ryan T. Anderson** — current president (since 2021); leading anti-same-sex-marriage and anti-trans-rights intellectual; author of *When Harry Became Sally* (2018) on gender-transition skepticism; previously at [[Heritage Foundation]] - **Mary Eberstadt** — religious-conservative cultural critic; author of *Adam and Eve After the Pill* and *Primal Screams* - **[[George Weigel]]** — Catholic intellectual; biographer of John Paul II; major figure in Catholic-conservative thought - **Robert P. George** (affiliated) — Princeton political philosopher; the central intellectual architect of contemporary natural-law social conservatism - **Yuval Levin** — formerly EPPC, now [[American Enterprise Institute]]; major center-right intellectual ## Role in Judicial Confirmations EPPC's most consequential operational contribution has been to **judicial-confirmation strategy** during periods of Republican Senate control. Ed Whelan's coordination of conservative-lawyer messaging during the Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett confirmations is among the most studied (and consequential) examples of think-tank strategic communications in modern American politics. Whelan was a central figure in the [[Brett Kavanaugh]] confirmation defense, including the controversial September 2018 Twitter thread proposing an alternative theory of the Christine Blasey Ford allegation — a thread Whelan retracted within 24 hours and which substantially damaged his public profile, though not his ongoing institutional role. The EPPC–[[Federalist Society]] coordination during this 2005–2020 period is the operational template for how conservative judicial nominations get confirmed: FedSoc curates the personnel, EPPC develops the public-facing case, and the broader donor-aligned network ([[Bradley Foundation]], [[DonorsTrust]], [[Heritage Foundation]]) provides the institutional infrastructure. ## Funding EPPC is funded by the standard religious-conservative foundation network: - [[Bradley Foundation]] - [[DonorsTrust]] - Religious-conservative individual donors (especially Catholic ones) - The Templeton-network and similar religious-liberty-focused funders - Smaller foundations supporting bioethics and religious-liberty work ## KB Significance EPPC matters to the KB for four reasons: 1. **The Federalist Society complement.** EPPC is the issue-development and public-strategy half of the conservative legal infrastructure; [[Federalist Society]] is the personnel-curation half. Together they constitute the operational machinery of the contemporary conservative judicial movement. 2. **The post-Dobbs reproductive-policy battlefront.** Under Ryan T. Anderson, EPPC has become a principal venue for the next-generation reproductive-rights fight: IVF, contraception access, abortion-pill restrictions, and the broader "fetal personhood" intellectual project. 3. **The anti-trans intellectual scaffolding.** Anderson's pre-EPPC work at [[Heritage Foundation]] and his ongoing EPPC scholarship constitute substantial intellectual infrastructure for the anti-trans legislative push of the 2020s. 4. **The Catholic-conservative anchor.** EPPC is the most institutionally important Catholic-conservative policy shop in the U.S. — a distinct intellectual tradition from the evangelical-Protestant social conservatism of [[Family Research Council]] or the post-Reformation Calvinism of the [[CREC]] orbit. ## See Also - [[Federalist Society]] — judicial-personnel pipeline (complement to EPPC's issue work) - [[Family Research Council]] — peer evangelical-Protestant social-con policy shop - [[Heritage Foundation]] — flagship movement-right peer - [[Becket Fund]] — religious-liberty litigation peer - [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] — religious-liberty litigation peer - [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]] — the constitutional inflection point EPPC strategized around - [[Think Tank Ecosystem]] — broader ecosystem hub - [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] — adjacent ecosystem hub