Once again, the Little Sisters of the Poor will be in court fighting for their religious freedom.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit will hear arguments on Tuesday in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Trump as a result of Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s lawsuit, threatening the sisters’ exemption from the Health and Human Services birth control mandate. Their exemption was finalized last year following a five-year legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court and made religious liberty a buzz-worthy issue even before Masterpiece Cakeshop.
This lawsuit, and the one similarly perpetuated by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, exists solely to stomp on the religious liberties of a group of women serving the poor and needy. It has nothing to do with anyone’s violation of the law.
As a general rule, with or without the Department of Health and Human Services birth control mandate under any administration, from 1960 to 2019, nuns should never have been required to offer birth control. Still, Obama’s mandate forced this asinine idea into the marketplace, and several religious organizations had to fight back or do something that violated their religious conscience. On Oct. 6, 2017, Trump’s department issued a new rule with an updated, broad religious exemption that finally protected religious nonprofit groups such as the Little Sisters of the Poor. In response, California and Pennsylvania sued.
Still, the Little Sisters of the Poor’s religious liberties should not rest on any administration’s executive orders. The government has a myriad of ways to provide birth control (not to mention the low cost) such that most women should be able to acquire it without forcing an employer to violate their religious beliefs.
In other words, they never should have targeted nuns to provide birth control because there are so many other viable ways to retrieve it. It’s like suing Alcoholics Anonymous for refusing to pay for their employees’ vodka while the local liquor store sits open down the street.
In an email, Lori Windham, senior counsel at Becket, the legal organization representing the Little Sisters, told me:
The government should never have taken upon its shoulders the significant task of ensuring birth control is available to everyone, to say nothing of the concept that every religious group in the country provide it against their wishes. But because the government did so, and because liberal politicians love nothing more than to force religious people to align to the government’s whims, however absurd, the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot be left alone to care for the poor and needy as they desire.
Instead, they must spend time and resources battling the authoritarian proclivities of a few politicians who, rather than addressing other local issues certainly of higher concern, such as crime, the economy, and education, want to force nuns to provide birth control.
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.
