In a case that actually began a few years ago, the California Department of Managed Health Care began forcing religious organizations to pay for elective abortions in their health insurance plans through a seemingly innocuous mandate. The churches sued for their right to remain exempt from providing abortions, something that does not align with their religious conscience, and have been in litigation ever since. Now new emails, revealed in discovery, show that California actually mandated this coverage at Planned Parenthood’s bidding and targeted religious organizations on purpose.
Before the fall of 2014, health plans in California did exempt religious organizations from receiving abortion coverage as a religious liberty issue. However, on Aug. 22, 2014, Michelle Rouillard, director of California’s Department of Managed Health Care, “announced that health plans restricting abortion coverage were illegal under state law,” according to the Catholic News Agency. The state mandated all insurance plans cover abortions which immediately meant religious organizations were covering abortions, even though they didn’t want to.
At the time, Bishop Robert McElroy, chairman of the state Catholic Conference’s Institutional Concerns Committee, pointed out the state’s actions targeted religious institutions. “It is a flagrant violation of their civil rights and deepest moral convictions, and is government coercion of the worst kind,” he said.
In discovery, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys who represent the churches that sued were able to see emails that confirm it’s worse than McElroy thought. They show email exchanges from Planned Parenthood officials and agency officials discussing the mandate. Per the emails, the agency issued its mandate in response to specific demands from Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood officials demanded the agency implement a “fix” so that they would require the health plans of religious organizations to include coverage for abortion, regardless of moral or conscientious objections. Planned Parenthood even went so far as to threaten to promote its own legislative “solution” if the administrative agency didn’t act, so California’s Department of Managed Health Care issued its mandate in 2014.
In short, the emails are damming.
Jeremiah Galus, lead attorney on the case, told me over the phone, “It was remarkable to me how much influence Planned Parenthood had in changing the coverage of abortions. Evidence shows only religious organizations would be affected and Planned Parenthood, and California, knew that.”
The churches filed a notice of appeal in their lawsuit and hope to remove the mandate which forces them to participate in insurance plans that cover abortions. While they’re happy to provide health coverage, per the Affordable Healthcare Act, they want an exemption for abortions like they had prior to fall 2014.
Such blatant targeting of religious organizations is a violation of the First Amendment rights of these religious organizations. There’s absolutely no need for insurance plans that provide coverage for churches to cover abortions. The unearthed emails prove that Planned Parenthood is not simply an organization functioning on the peripheral of society, offering their so-called reproductive healthcare to women in need, and abortions, in a pinch.
Instead, the exchanges show Planned Parenthood somehow intimidated the state into changing their policies, which would force insurance companies to provide abortion coverage to a group of people that believe abortion is wrong. That the state succumbed to Planned Parenthood’s unethical pressure is just as bad. For now, litigation will continue and time will tell how it will be resolved.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
