The Supreme Court said Friday it will take up a second challenge to the Obama administration’s birth control mandate, this one questioning whether a religious exception for hospitals, charities and schools goes far enough.
The justices will hear cases brought by seven groups including Little Sisters of the Poor and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, in oral arguments likely to take place in March. The fourth major challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law for the court to hear, the case pits questions of religious freedom against the responsibility of employers to comply with rules laid out under the law.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration is requiring employers to cover all types of birth control in their employee health plans. It will be the second challenge to the mandate for the court to hear. In 2014, in the closely watched Hobby Lobby case, the court said some for-profit businesses don’t have to comply with it.
When religious nonprofits who oppose all or certain types of birth control protested, the administration issued an accommodation, saying they can opt out of providing the coverage by delegating that responsibility to the insurer itself.
But many Catholic and evangelical universities, charities and medical providers objected, saying that even the act of transferring the responsibility makes them complicit in providing it. They want a total exemption from the requirement, as churches have been given.
“The government knows full well how to exempt people when it wants to exempt people,” said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund, a nonprofit legal group representing Little Sisters.
The Catholic church opposes all forms of artificial contraception, while some evangelicals are against kinds they believe cause abortions. The court also will hear challenges brought by Priests for Life, Texas Baptist University, Southern Nazarene University, Geneva College and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
A number of federal appeals courts around the country have ruled against the challengers, saying the Obama administration made sufficient provision for them to exercise their religious beliefs.
“We look forward to the argument before the Supreme Court, which we hope will reverse the appeals courts’ rulings and ensure that people of faith are not punished for making decisions consistent with that faith,” said David Cortman, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Geneva College and Southern Nazarene University.
The court’s decision to hear the case ensures that bitter disputes over the birth control mandate will remain front-and-center going into the 2016 presidential election, with Republicans generally opposed to it and Democrats generally supportive.
Women’s health groups who support abortion rights said Friday they hope the court won’t grant nonprofits any further exemptions from the mandate. The requirement means women with employer-sponsored coverage can generally get access to all kinds of birth control without having to pay out-of-pocket for it, they noted.
“This case could undermine one of the greatest advancements for women’s health in a generation, by sanctioning discrimination over a family-planning service used by over 99 percent of women at some point in their lives,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“The Supreme Court needs to lay this issue to rest once and for all by refusing to grant any discriminatory exceptions to the rights of women in this country, including their own religious freedom,” she said.
