In an encouraging win for religious liberty, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor and its right to be exempt from Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. The Little Sisters have spent seven years in court fighting for a religious exemption from the mandate. The majority opinion, which Justice Clarence Thomas penned, is an encouraging step toward honoring religious objectors and their deeply held beliefs when it comes to absurd but supposedly necessary issues such as mandated birth control.
In his opinion, Thomas wrote, “For over 150 years, the Little Sisters have engaged in faithful service and sacrifice, motivated by a religious calling to surrender all for the sake of their brother.” Thomas concludes, “We hold today that the Departments had the statutory authority to craft that exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption. We further hold that the rules promulgating these exemptions are free from procedural defects.”
The opinions were straightforward and robust. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote separately, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, excoriated the concept of a contraceptive mandate. “First, [Obamacare] does not provide contraceptive coverage for women who do not work outside the home. If Congress thought that there was a compelling need to make free contraceptives available for all women, why did it make no provision for women who do not receive a paycheck? Some of these women may have a greater need for free contraceptives than do women in the work force. Second, if Congress thought that there was a compelling need to provide cost-free contraceptives for all working women, why didn’t Congress mandate that coverage in [Obamacare] itself? Why did it leave it to [the Health Resources and Services Administration] to decide whether to require such coverage at all?”
Religious liberty advocates are thrilled with the ruling. Maureen Ferguson, a senior fellow for the Catholic Association, applauded Alito’s opinion in a statement: “Although the nuns won in court again today, Justice Alito predicted that the aggressive litigation against the Little Sisters will continue, despite the fact that ‘no employee of the Little Sisters has come forward with an objection to the Little Sisters’ conduct.’ We commend Justice Alito for writing in his concurrence that he would finally ‘bring the Little Sisters’ legal odyssey to an end.”
As much as this win is important for the Little Sisters and religious liberty, it’s unfortunate that the case continued to remain in litigation for so long and that Democrats simply could not leave the nuns alone. Why the government would have the right to compel nuns, of all people, to provide free contraception will forever be a mystery.
Becket, the legal organization that has stood on behalf of the Little Sisters all these years and defended the organization in court with ferocity and verve, deserves much praise. In a statement through Becket, Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor summed up the group’s fight and triumphant win: “We are overjoyed that, once again, the Supreme Court has protected our right to serve the elderly without violating our faith. Our life’s work and great joy is serving the elderly poor, and we are so grateful that the contraceptive mandate will no longer steal our attention from our calling.”
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.
