Federal judge tosses Erie diocese's suit over contraception mandate
(By ED PALATTELLA, Erie Times-News, January 23, 2013)
A federal judge in Erie has dismissed the Catholic Diocese of Erie's suit over the contraception mandate in the new national health-care law.
U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin said the case is not yet ripe for review because the administration of President Barack Obama continues to determine how it will implement the mandate to address concerns such as the diocese's.
In a 43-page opinion filed late Tuesday, McLaughlin also found that the Catholic Diocese of Erie, in a safe-harbor provision in the Affordable Care Act, is "protected from any potential enforcement action relative to the mandate until at least Jan. 1, 2014."
The diocese's "assumption that they will be subjected to the mandate in a manner that violates their sincerely-held religious beliefs is, at most, a contingency which may well never come to pass," McLaughlin wrote.
He left open the possibility that the diocese could return to court to challenge the mandate once it goes into effect and if the diocese believes the final regulations violate its religious rights under the First Amendment.
Bishop Lawrence T. Persico said in a statement that he was disappointed that McLaughlin did not find the suit was ripe for review, though Persico said he was heartened by McLaughlin's comments that hold the government to its "good faith statements" that it will amend the mandate in light of the concerns of the Erie diocese and others.
"I take comfort that the dismissal was 'without prejudice,' which means that if the government does not live up to these commitments within the time frame it promised, we will be free to bring the matter back to the court," Persico said in the statement.
With his ruling, McLaughlin joined the overwhelming majority of federal district judges who have heard similar cases nationwide and dismissed them as legally premature.
Unlikely Coalition Fights Contraception Mandate
(By Eliza Newlin Carney, RollCall.com, Jan. 24, 2013)
Abortion opponents rallying by the thousands Friday in Washington at the annual March for Life have lost some political battles lately but won a string of court victories, thanks in part to a diverse coalition challenging a contraception mandate in the health care overhaul.
For-profit businesses, state attorneys general and educational institutions are among more than 100 plaintiffs who have mounted some 40 lawsuits challenging the mandate, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit legal institute that has played a leading role in the suits. With lower courts in dispute over the mandate, both sides agree the issue will almost inevitably be settled by the Supreme Court.
The mandate requires employer-sponsored health care plans to cover contraception, including intrauterine devices and emergency birth control drugs that many religious employers equate with abortion. The Obama administration offered a narrow exemption for religious organizations and required insurers, not employers, to pay for the services. However, opponents remain unsatisfied.
Most of the mandate’s challengers are nonprofits such as Catholic educational institutions, hospitals, and archdioceses. But Protestant institutions have also sued, as have several for-profit businesses, including the arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby Inc., based in Oklahoma City. The fight has drawn in Washington players, such as the Becket Fund, that do not typically focus on abortion but that regard the mandate as a violation of religious freedom.
“We’re trying to shape the law around religious liberty and not jump into these culture war issues,” said Becket Fund President William Mumma, a former Wall Street executive. “I don’t see it by any means as a contest over abortion.”
The white shoe law firm of Jones Day has also deployed a team of lawyers around the country, including a half-dozen in its Washington office, to defend Catholic dioceses and educational institutions suing the federal government. Other leading players representing the plaintiffs include the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Center for Law and Justice.
“I think you’re seeing this unique coalition coalescing on this issue because of the scope of what’s at stake,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal services nonprofit. The legal fight combines religious liberty and conscience as well as reproductive health issues. Sekulow added, “It’s a broad class of plaintiffs that are impacted by this.”
Sekulow’s group has filed four direct challenges on behalf of for-profit companies against the Department of Health and Human Services, obtaining injunctions in all three.
Many of the tax-exempt groups filing suits have found themselves in a holding pattern in the courts, in part because the administration has agreed to delay implementation of the mandate for those groups until August of this year while it crafts compromise regulations, Becket Fund general counsel Kyle Duncan said. But in 14 cases involving for-profit businesses, nine lower courts have given the plaintiffs preliminary injunctive relief, according to Duncan.
“We believe that the owners . . . have a claim of religious liberty, particularly when you’re talking about a closely held family business,” and that the mandate violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Duncan said.
Some of the legal institutes challenging the mandate have considerable financial heft behind them. Americans United for Life, which has raised its profile since moving its headquarters from Chicago to Washington in 2009, had a $4 million budget in 2010, tax filings show, up from about $1 million in 2007. The American Center for Law and Justice had a $16.7 million budget in 2010, according to tax records. And the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative nonprofit and grant-making organization, had a budget approaching $34 million that same year.
Defending the mandate are the American Civil Liberties Union and a long list of women’s health providers and advocates, including the National Women’s Health Network, the Guttmacher Institute and the doctor-led Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health.
“Regardless of whether you are a for-profit or a not-for-profit, taking a job isn’t the same as joining a church,” ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Brigitte Amiri said. “So organizations and businesses that operate in the public sphere should abide by public rules.”
Allowing companies such as the Hobby Lobby, which has some 13,000 employees, to dictate health care coverage would have practical implications for women and set “a very disturbing precedent,” she added.
The legal battle has largely failed to capture the public’s attention but reflects the cross-currents shaping the abortion debate on the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.
Public opinion on the issue has shifted remarkably little over the decades, experts say, with a majority of Americans supporting the legal right to an abortion but also accepting a variety of restrictions. At the same time, new drugs such as emergency contraception have created legal and medical ambiguities.
“We’re really blurring the line between contraception and abortion here” when it comes to emergency contraceptives, said Anna Franzonello, staff counsel at Americans United for Life.
A Flood of Suits Fights Coverage of Birth Control
(By ETHAN BRONNER, The New York Times, January 26, 2013)
In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom and health care access that appears headed to the Supreme Court.
In recent months, federal courts have seen dozens of lawsuits brought not only by religious institutions like Catholic dioceses but also by private employers ranging from a pizza mogul to produce transporters who say the government is forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith. Some have been turned away by judges convinced that access to contraception is a vital health need and a compelling state interest. Others have been told that their beliefs appear to outweigh any state interest and that they may hold off complying with the law until their cases have been judged. New suits are filed nearly weekly.
“This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country’s top scholars on church-state conflicts. “There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts.”
President Obama’s health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was the most fought-over piece of legislation in his first term and was the focus of a highly contentious Supreme Court decision last year that found it to be constitutional.
But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures” approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including “morning-after pills” and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion.
As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for “religious employers,” meaning those who meet a four-part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law.
But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values.
“We represent a Catholic college founded by Benedictine monks,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has brought a number of the cases to court. “They don’t qualify as a house of worship and don’t turn away people in hiring or as students because they are not Catholic.”
In that case, involving Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, a federal appeals court panel in Washington told the college last month that it could hold off on complying with the law while the federal government works on a promised exemption for religiously-affiliated institutions. The court told the government that it wanted an update by mid-February.
Defenders of the provision say employers may not be permitted to impose their views on employees, especially when something so central as health care is concerned.
“Ninety-nine percent of women use contraceptives at some time in their lives,” said Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center, which filed a brief supporting the government in one of the cases. “There is a strong and legitimate government interest because it affects the health of women and babies.”
She added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Contraception was declared by the C.D.C. to be one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”
Officials at the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment, saying the cases were pending.
A compromise for religious institutions may be worked out. The government hopes that by placing the burden on insurance companies rather than on the organizations, the objections will be overcome. Even more challenging cases involve private companies run by people who reject all or many forms of contraception.
The Alliance Defending Freedom — like Becket, a conservative group — has brought a case on behalf of Hercules Industries, a company in Denver that makes sheet metal products. It was granted an injunction by a judge in Colorado who said the religious values of the family owners were infringed by the law.
“Two-thirds of the cases have had injunctions against Obamacare, and most are headed to courts of appeals,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the alliance. “It is clear that a substantial number of these cases will vindicate religious freedom over Obamacare. But it seems likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute.”
The timing of these cases remains in flux. Half a dozen will probably be argued by this summer, perhaps in time for inclusion on the Supreme Court’s docket next term. So far, two- and three-judge panels on four federal appeals courts have weighed in, granting some injunctions while denying others.
One of the biggest cases involves Hobby Lobby, which started as a picture framing shop in an Oklahoma City garage with $600 and is now one of the country’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.
David Green, the company’s founder, is an evangelical Christian who says he runs his company on biblical principles, including closing on Sunday so employees can be with their families, paying nearly double the minimum wage and providing employees with comprehensive health insurance.
Mr. Green does not object to covering contraception but considers morning-after pills to be abortion-inducing and therefore wrong.
“Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Mr. Green said in a statement. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit last month turned down his family’s request for a preliminary injunction, but the company has found a legal way to delay compliance for some months.
These cases pit the First Amendment and a religious liberty law against the central domestic policy of the Obama administration, likely affecting many tens of thousands of employees. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and much attention has been focused in the past two decades on the issue of “free exercise,” meaning preventing governmental interference with religious practices.
Free-exercise cases in recent years have been about the practices of small groups — the use of a hallucinogen by a religious group, for example — rather than something as central as the Affordable Care Act.
The cases also test the contours of a 1993 law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law prohibits the federal government from imposing a “substantial burden” on any religious practice without a “compelling state interest.” The burden must also be the least restrictive possible.
Professor Laycock of the University of Virginia said: “The burden is clear especially for religious organizations, which ought to be able to run themselves in accordance with their religious teachings. They are being asked to pay for medications they view as evil.” He added that because the health care law had many exceptions, including for very small companies, the government might find it hard to convince the courts that contraception coverage is, in fact, a compelling interest.
But William Marshall, a First Amendment scholar at the University of North Carolina Law School, said the Supreme Court asserted in a 1990 opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia that religious groups had a big burden in overcoming “a valid and neutral law of general applicability.”
“You could have an objection of conscience to anything the government wants you to do — pay taxes because they will go to war or to capital punishment, or having your picture on your driver’s license,” Mr. Marshall said. “The court has made clear that religious groups have no broad right for such exceptions.”
Mr. Laycock said that while judges are supposed to be neutral, they too can get caught up in the culture wars. Judges sympathetic to women’s sexual autonomy would probably come down on one side of the dispute, and those more concerned with religious liberty on the other, he said.
“There is a lot of political freight on this issue,” he said.
American Workers’ Access To Birth Control Must Not Be Subject To Employers’ Religion
(Press Release, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, January 28, 2013)
American workers’ access to birth control should not be subject to their employers’ religious beliefs, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told a federal appeals court.
In a friend-of-the-court brief, Americans United urged the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate, which requires most businesses to provide workers with a health insurance that includes no-cost birth control.
Several businesses, represented by Religious Right legal groups, have filed lawsuits contending that they have a religious liberty right to refuse to comply with the mandate, a federal regulation issued in conjunction with the Affordable Care Act.
Americans United disagrees.
“The decision to use birth control must rest with the individual,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “We simply can’t have a health care system in which Americans’ access to contraception varies depending on where the boss goes to church.”
The case, Newland v. Sebelius, concerns a Colorado firm called Hercules Industries that manufactures heating and air conditioning equipment. The company’s owners say they have religious objections to artificial contraceptives and are arguing that a 1993 federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, frees them from providing it to employees, even indirectly.
Americans United says the company has misconstrued the law. In the brief, AU argues that the firm’s owners don’t suffer a substantial burden because some employees might choose to use birth control.
“An exemption for [Hercules’ owners] would significantly burden Hercules Industries’s employees – many of whom do not share Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs – by making it more difficult, and sometimes impossible, for them to obtain contraception,” asserts the brief.
The brief goes on to assert, “[Hercules owners] have every right to refrain from using contraception and to attempt to persuade others to do the same. But once they enter the secular market for labor to staff their secular, for-profit corporation, they may not force their religious choices on their employees, who are entitled to make their own ‘personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, [and] child rearing.’”
The brief was drafted by Americans United Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper, and Madison Fellow Ben Hazelwood.
Other groups signing the brief are Women of Reform Judaism, the Hindu American Foundation, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
Texas wants women to have babies so much that lawmakers are willing to spend part of the state’s very limited budget to reward companies that deny insured reproductive healthcare to women.
Last week, tea party-backed GOP Texas state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a self-proclaimed Baptist, filed House Bill 649, which would stroke “religiously based” companies, like craft store Hobby Lobby (???), by giving them tax breaks if they choose to deny their female employees contraception coverage.
The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) addressed the growing costs of contraception, dwindling access to it, and increasing need for coverage by making it mandatory for some companies to provide that insurance coverage or else pay a federal fine.
But apparently oblivious to the problem of affordable access to contraception coverage, Texas is considering the proposed bill that would reimburse companies that pay the fine the lesser of either how much they were fined or the total of their state taxes. According to the text of the bill, companies qualifying for the tax breaks include every business that:
Quote:“[R]efuses to make available as part of the health benefit plan coverage for emergency contraception [defined as any medication that “is used postcoitally and prevents pregnancy by preventing fertilization of an egg or preventing implantation of an egg in a uterus”] based solely on the religious convictions of the owners of the business.”
Hear that, proud women of Texas? Your lawmakers want your right to this insurance coverage to be based on the religious convictions of your boss, rather than your own needs, and they’re willing to spend your tax dollars to do it. Pony up, ladies.
Obama offers faith groups new birth control rule
(By RACHEL ZOLL and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press, February 1, 2013)
Facing a wave of lawsuits over what government can tell religious groups to do, the Obama administration on Friday proposed a compromise for faith-based nonprofits that object to covering birth control in their employee health plans.
Some of the lawsuits appear headed for the Supreme Court, threatening another divisive legal battle over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, which requires most employers to cover birth control free of charge to female workers as a preventive service. The law exempted churches and other houses of worship, but religious charities, universities, hospitals and even some for-profit businesses have objected.
The government's new offer, in a proposed regulation, has two parts.
Administration officials said it would more simply define the religious organizations that are exempt from the requirement altogether. For example, a mosque whose food pantry serves the whole community would not have to comply.
For other religious employers, the proposal attempts to create a buffer between them and contraception coverage. Female employees would still have free access through insurers or a third party, but the employer would not have to arrange for the coverage or pay for it. Insurers would be reimbursed for any costs by a credit against fees owed the government.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the plan would satisfy the objections of Roman Catholic charities and other faith-affiliated nonprofits nationwide challenging the requirement.
Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing religious nonprofits and businesses in lawsuits, said many of his clients will still have serious concerns.
"This is a moral decision for them," Duncan said. "Why doesn't the government just exempt them?"
Neither the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for hospitals, nor the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had an immediate reaction, saying the regulations were still being studied.
Some women's advocates were pleased.
"The important thing for us is that women employees can count on getting insurance that meets their needs, even if they're working for a religiously affiliated employer," said Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network.
Policy analyst Sarah Lipton-Lubet of the American Civil Liberties Union said the rule appeared to meet the ACLU's goal of providing "seamless coverage."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that the compromise would provide "women across the nation with coverage of recommended preventive care at no cost, while respecting religious concerns."
The birth-control rule, first introduced a year ago, became an election issue, with some advocates for women praising the mandate as a victory but some religious leaders decrying it as an attack on faith groups.
The health care law requires most employers, including faith-affiliated hospitals and nonprofits, to provide preventive care at no charge to employees. Scientific advisers to the government recommended that artificial contraception, including sterilization, be included in a group of services for women. The goal, in part, is to help women space out pregnancies to promote health.
Under the original rule, only those religious groups that primarily employ and serve people of their own faith — such as churches — were exempt. But other religiously affiliated groups, such as church-affiliated universities, Catholic Charities and hospitals, were told they had to comply.
Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some religious leaders who have generally been supportive of Obama's policies lobbied fiercely for a broader exemption. The Catholic Church prohibits the use of artificial contraception. Evangelicals generally accept the use of birth control, but some object to specific methods such as the morning-after contraceptive pill, which they argue is tantamount to abortion, and is covered by the policy.
Obama had promised to change the birth control requirement so insurance companies — and not faith-affiliated employers — would pay for the coverage, but religious leaders said more changes were needed to make the plan work.
Since then, more than 40 lawsuits have been filed by religious nonprofits and secular for-profit businesses contending the mandate violates their religious beliefs. As expected, this latest regulation does not provide any accommodation for individual business owners who have religious objections to the rule.
Questions remain about how the services ultimately will be funded. The Health and Human Services Department has not tallied an overall cost for the plan, according to Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, an HHS deputy policy director.
However, in its new version of the rule, the department argues that the change won't impose new costs on insurers because it will save them money "from improvements in women's health and fewer child births."
The latest version of the mandate is now subject to a 60-day public comment period. The overall mandate is to take effect for religious nonprofits in August.
Groups poring over fine print in Obama administration's latest proposed compromise on contraception
(Robert Joiner, St. Louis Beacon, February 2, 2013)
The Obama administration’s proposal to allow women to get free contraceptive services while exempting more church-affiliated groups from the original mandate was warmly praised Friday by a representative of the St. Louis Planned Parenthood office, but the immediate reaction among local church-related groups was more subdued.
Initially, exemption from the mandate for contraceptive coverage was limited to religious institutions. But some church-affiliated hospitals and universities complained that they were being required to cover a service that violated their religious beliefs. Under the shift announced Friday, these groups would be exempted from the mandate, but their insurance plans still would have to provide contraceptive coverage at no cost to women.
Although some polls have shown that women who are Catholic generally support the administration position on birth control, it is unclear whether the administration’s shift will appease church-linked organizations that have been opposed to the initial mandate.
A year ago this month, Michael Panicola, a senior vice president at SSM Health Care, expressed disappointment over the contraceptive mandate, saying it would “force organizations like ours to go against our conscience and the explicit teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Panicola said late Friday: “In response to last year’s rule on women’s preventive services, SSM Health Care and other Catholic organizations expressed concerns with and asked for changes to the contraceptive coverage section of the rule. The Obama administration has issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in an attempt to address these concerns. Given that the new rule is 70-plus pages, we will need time to analyze its many details before we are able to offer our assessment and provide comment.”
Likewise, the Archdiocese of St. Louis said it looked “forward to issuing a more detailed statement later.” In the meantime, the diocese said it wanted to echo comments of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He said today that “we welcome the opportunity to study the proposed regulations closely.”
The St. Louis-based Catholic Health Association, representing more than 2,000 U.S. Catholic hospitals and health facilities, has said previously that it was “unacceptable” to exempt only churches from providing sterilization and contraceptive coverage. On Friday afternoon, however, spokesman Fred Caesar didn’t expand much on whether the administration had gone far enough in widening religious exemptions from mandated coverage.
Of the new proposal, CHA would only say that “we look forward to studying it in relation to our members' expressed concerns and sharing our assessment of the changes.”
Pam Fichter, president of Missouri Right to Life, was out of town on vacation and couldn’t be reached for comment.
At least one member of the Missouri congressional delegation dismissed the president's proposal.
Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo. "This announcement appears to be more of the same from the Obama Administration and continues to fall short of the steps needed to protect Americans’ religious freedom,” said U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
That remark was in sharp contrast to the praise for the proposal from Paula Gianino, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. She called the latest shift a ”historic advancement,” adding that the move “delivers on a promise of giving women access to birth control without co-pay, no matter where they work.”
Paula Gianino, Planned Parenthood She said the change was more of a “clarification” that spelled out technical aspects of the proposal, “but the principal behind it is clearly consistent, and that is women in this country should have access, if they want it, to affordable birth control without any out of pocket cost.”
The policy, she said, “makes it clear for women that their boss is not to decide whether women can have birth control coverage in their health insurance plan.”
Can Scientific Illiteracy Be Protected as Religious Freedom?
(Jason Stanford, Opinion Essay, HuffingtonPost.com, February 5, 2013)
We teach teenagers sex ed so they can make healthy choices and, we pray, not get pregnant. But when you consider the opposition to the contraceptive insurance mandate in Obamacare, maybe we need to start giving sex ed to politicians and some employers, too.
Barack Obama's policy is that health insurance plans should have to cover female contraceptives at no charge as they do any other preventative medicine. This is already law in 28 states, but Obama's policy raised religious hackles, and lawsuits ensued. The Obama administration recently offered faith-based nonprofits a way out of paying for contraceptives for religious reasons without denying their female employees the ability to make their own choices.
"The proposed regulations released today make clear that women will have access to birth control at no cost, no matter where they work," wrote Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America
The new category of "religious employers" covers churches and faith-based nonprofits with religious missions, but it does not cover private business owned by religious people, some of whom are still squawking that they don't want to comply with the law. I respect anyone's right to worship as they please, but it's hard to give much credence to their objections when they say they don't want to pay for drugs that cause abortion. Because if you were paying attention in ninth grade health class, you know birth control doesn't cause abortions. It prevents them.
Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, described the contraception mandate as "a measure that's been put in place by the Obama administration to force private entities and businesses to provide abortion-producing drugs. And so you've essentially put religious people in a position of violating their conscience, forcing them essentially to be involved in the abortion industry."
It's factually wrong to equate hormonal birth control with abortion. This is how pregnancy works: The sperm takes the egg out to Bennigan's and fertilizes it, whereupon the egg heads back to her place at the uterus to implant. This officially kicks off a long process where the other eggs get jealous but throw her a shower anyway before one day you're broke and some kid eats all your food and doesn't clean his room. But here's the key: If you prevent the implantation in the uterus, you've prevented a pregnancy. And you can't terminate a pregnancy that doesn't exist. That's what they were getting at when they named it "contraception." Thinking that contraception causes abortion requires you both to misunderstand the word as well as the process.
When challenged that contraception would prevent unwanted pregnancies and therefore reduce the number of abortions (as a new study of St. Louis teens showed), Saenz said, "If you go to Plan B, if you go to their websites, the people that produce these emergency contraceptives, they will tell you very clearly that it has the impact of this happening and causing an abortion."
Actually, on the website for Plan B One-Step, it says -- very clearly -- "Plan B One-Step® is not effective in terminating an existing pregnancy." The National Institute for Health agrees that Plan B emergency contraception works "in the same way as regular birth control pills." For the record, Saenz is not a doctor. He's a lawyer.
The Hobby Lobby, the big-box craft stores that sell sequins, glue guns and dowels, is suing the Obama administration because they don't want to "offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan," says their lawyer. They already lost a preliminary hearing before Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and if the Hobby Lobby doesn't comply, then the federal government will fine them $1.3 million a day -- all because they don't want to pay to terminate pregnancies that the pills would prevent. These people are literally making a federal case out of their scientific illiteracy.
A Texas Republican has sponsored a bill to give the Hobby Lobby, a privately held, for-profit Oklahoma corporation, a sales tax break to offset the fine, meaning Texas taxpayers would have to subsidize the willful ignorance of a few wealthy Oklahomans.
This fight is not, as Saenz claimed, "part of a bigger issue of the Obama administration declaring war on religious liberty." This fight is about people who lost the sexual revolution and the last election trying to use religion to bully women by taking away their right to make their own health care decisions. That, and whom they want to go to Bennigan's with.
Catholic Bishops oppose revisions to contraception mandate
(Sam Baker, TheHill.com, February 7, 2013)
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said Thursday that it remains opposed to the Obama administration's contraception mandate, arguing Catholic institutions will have "second-class status" under the policy despite recent tweaks to its rules.
The USCCB said the policy will require Catholic institutions to have a hand in healthcare coverage they find immoral.
"Because the stakes are so high, we will not cease from our effort to assure that healthcare for all does not mean freedom for few," Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, said in a statement.
The group was initially noncommittal last week after the Obama administration released new regulations on the contraception mandate and its "accommodations" for religious-affiliated institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and universities.
But on Thursday, the bishops said last week's rules ensure that employees of a religious institution would automatically receive contraception coverage through their insurance companies.
"It appears that the government would require all employees in our 'accommodated' ministries to have the illicit coverage — they may not opt out, nor even opt out for their children — under a separate policy," Dolan said.
He said the USCCB will file formal comments on the regulations.
Although billed as another accommodation to religious groups that oppose contraception, the regulations released last Friday made only minor changes to the substance of the policy.
The administration's policy requires most employers to cover contraception in their employees' healthcare plans without charging a copay or deductible. Churches and houses of worship are entirely exempt. Religious-affiliated institutions don't have to directly finance the coverage, but their employees will still receive cost-free contraception through the employer's insurance company.
The USCCB wanted a broader exception that would allow any employer to opt out of the mandate based on his or her religious or ethical beliefs. Democrats strongly oppose that approach.
“It appears to offer second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic healthcare, Catholic education and Catholic charities," Dolan said. "HHS offers what it calls an ‘accommodation’ rather than accepting the fact that these ministries are integral to our church and worthy of the same exemption as our Catholic churches.”
Dolan said he appreciates the administration's statements that it does not want to make religious employers pay for or offer contraception. But the latest iteration doesn't meet that goal, he said.
"We remain eager for the administration to fulfill that pledge and to find acceptable solutions—we will affirm any genuine progress that is made, and we will redouble our efforts to overcome obstacles or setbacks," Dolan said.
"It appears that the government would require all employees in our 'accommodated' ministries to have the illicit coverage — they may not opt out, nor even opt out for their children — under a separate policy," Dolan said.
Birth control exemptions fail to stop lawsuits
( Alanna Byrne, InsideCounsel.com, February 8, 2013)
Last week, the Obama administration introduced some additional exemptions for employers that object to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s controversial contraceptive mandate. But the concessions, which were limited to faith-based institutions, are unlikely to stem the tide of lawsuits filed by businesses with moral qualms over the law.
The contraceptive mandate requires most secular, for-profit employers to provide health insurance coverage that includes FDA-approved contraceptives and sterilization or face fines for noncompliance. So far the law has sparked more than 40 lawsuits, many from business owners who say that the law violates their religious freedoms by forcing them to cover birth control.
The new exemptions would apply to churches and other houses of worship, and would allow religious non-profits to opt out of providing contraception coverage. Instead, those non-profits could choose separate individual health insurance policies in which the insurer pays for birth control.
Obama’s compromise, however, does not include an exception for secular companies, which are responsible for many of the lawsuits currently making their way through the courts. Companies have so far had mixed success when trying to obtain temporary injunctions from the contraceptive mandate. In December, the 10th Circuit denied such a request from Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., saying that it was unlikely a court would find that federal religious freedom protections extend to businesses. Both the 8th Circuit and the 7th Circuit, however, recently granted injunctions to businesses whose owners have similar moral objections to the mandate.
New Injunctions Granted Against HHS Mandate
(BY CARL BUNDERSON/EWTN NEWS/February 7, 2013)
Two federal appeals courts have become the latest to grant preliminary injunctions protecting the religious liberty of for-profit plaintiffs from the demands of the federal contraception mandate.
“Freedom is not the government’s to give and take away when it pleases,” said Alliance Defending Freedom counsel Matt Bowman in response to one of the decisions.
“The court did the right thing in issuing its order, and we are confident that this unconstitutional mandate’s days are numbered,” he continued.
Alliance Defending Freedom is representing numerous plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging the controversial contraception mandate, which requires employers to offer health insurance covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions.
More than 130 individuals and organizations have sued over the mandate, arguing that it violates their right to religious freedom.
Currently, 11 of 14 for-profit plaintiffs have been granted injunctions blocking the mandate. Many non-profit plaintiffs have had their suits set aside while the federal government develops a proposal that it claims will protect their religious rights.
On Feb. 1, the 8th Circuit appeals court found that the case brought by medical manufacturer and retailer Annex Medical, Inc., has a “sufficient likelihood of success on the merits,” citing the same court’s November decision granting an injunction to another for-profit business, O’Brien Industrial Holdings.
The owner of Annex Medical is a Catholic, and argued that his religious beliefs “compel him to provide for the physical health” of his employees, but that the contraception mandate has made it impossible for him to purchase a health insurance plan for his employees without “violating his religious beliefs.”
Bowman welcomed the decision, saying, “Americans have the God-given freedom to live and do business according to their faith. Honoring God is not just important within the four walls of a church; it is important every day, in all areas of life, including in our work.”
A similar decision was reached by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit regarding Grote Industries, an Indiana-based vehicle lighting manufacturer.
The Grote family is also Catholic, and its members run their business “in accordance with the precepts of their faith.” They argued that the mandate violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Obama administration argued that the burden its mandate puts on people of faith is minimal, a claim that the court said “obscure(s) the substance of the religious-liberty violation asserted here.”
The court issued Grote Industries an injunction on Jan. 30 because it believes the company has a “reasonable likelihood of success” on the basis of their argument, and that “they will suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction ... and the balance of harms tips in their favor.”
Of the three judges on the 7th Circuit appeals panel, Ilana Rovner dissented from the majority decision.
Rovner argued that corporations, not their owners, are obliged to provide contraceptive coverage by the mandate. She said that because Grote Industries is not “organized expressly to pursue religious ends,” it has no “religious interests or rights.”
Bowman countered this argument, saying that “forcing employers to surrender their faith in order to earn a living is unprecedented, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”
Bowman countered this argument, saying that “forcing employers to surrender their faith in order to earn a living is unprecedented, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”
Catholic Health Association: New contraceptive mandate signals 'progress'
(Joshua J. McElwee | National Catholic Reporter | Feb. 13, 2013)
The mandate, a provision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of the implementation of the health care reform law, has been the subject of sustained criticism from the U.S. bishops' conference, which has claimed it does not do enough to exempt religious organizations opposed to contraception.
The Obama administration announced a new set of compromises on the matter for religious groups Feb. 1, exempting all religious organizations not required to file tax returns from the mandate.
Additionally, the administration said that any nonprofit organizations that oppose providing coverage and consider themselves to be religious entities will be also exempt.
The bishops' conference said Feb. 7 that although the bishops "remain eager" to work with the administration on the issue, they believe the latest compromises still fall short.
Daughter of Charity Sr. Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said Wednesday that while her organization is still studying the new regulations, some of their provisions are "a great relief to our members and many others."
Specifically, said Keehan, the fact that the new proposed regulations use the tax code to define religious organizations and allow non-profits to certify themselves as religious entities are signs of "substantial progress."
The Obama administration previously announced a narrower compromise in February 2012, which would have allowed some religiously affiliated organizations to decline providing coverage.
Bishops and others who opposed that compromise said its definition of religious employers as those who primarily inculcate religious values and primarily serve or employ members of the religious was too narrow.
Keehan said Wednesday that her organization has been asked by the administration to provide input on parts of the new proposed regulations which are still being finalized.
After the release Feb. 1, the new regulations have been opened to a 60-day public comment period.
Keehan also obliquely rebutted any speculation that her organization had experienced difficulties with the bishops over each other's views on the mandate.
"Throughout this sometimes challenging period, CHA has remained in constant dialogue with the leadership of the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops, individual Bishops who had concerns and suggestions and the Administration," wrote Keehan.
"We believe that our commitment to dialogue to an acceptable solution is matched by all parties and we are committed to completing resolution of this issue," she continued.
Keehan concluded: "CHA is also aware that the issues that we have as a ministry are narrower than the broader concerns of the Bishops' Conference. Our mutual efforts to resolve the issues affecting our ministries are our contribution to the overall process."
"CHA looks forward to working with our members, the leadership of the Bishops' Conference and the Administration to complete this process."
GOP lawmakers join legal fight against Obama contraception mandate
(By Tom Howell Jr. | The Washington Times | February 20, 2013)
Eleven Republican members of Congress are challenging the contraception insurance mandate in President Obama's health care law by formally backing Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma-based chain of crafts stores whose owners say they must choose between their Christian beliefs and insuring women's birth control and other preventative services.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch led the group of nine senators and two House members in filing a friend-of-the-court brief on the company's behalf in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Religious freedom is an issue our country was founded on, and it's not a Democrat or Republican issue," Mr. Hatch said Wednesday. "Unfortunately, the Obama administration has time and again ignored calls to stop the implementation of a policy some organizations or businesses are morally opposed to."
Houses of worship are exempt from the mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to insure contraception. Nonprofits with religious affiliations are mulling an "accommodation" offered by the Department of Health and Human Services Feb. 1 that would separate their health plans from contraception coverage, but even under the latest offer, for-profit entities such as Hobby Lobby would not be granted similar flexibility.
The mandate has led to a slew of lawsuits from religious universities and hospitals and from more than a dozen corporations, resulting in a mix of rulings from the circuit courts and potential clash before the Supreme Court.
Hobby Lobby is among the few corporations that have not been granted temporary relief by the courts.
Federal lawmakers who signed onto the brief say the Obama administration is violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that passed with broad bipartisan support in 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Hatch and the other legislators had a hand in passing the law, which "sought to curb government-imposed infringements on religious liberty," according to their brief announced Wednesday.
Mr. Hatch was joined by Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Richard Shelby of Alabama, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Frank Wolf of Virginia also joined the brief.
Nashville diocese gives up fight over contraceptive coverage
(Amanda Gambill, The Tennessean, February 28, 2013)
The Catholic Diocese of Nashville has voluntarily withdrawn its appeal of a November ruling that dismissed its lawsuit against the Federal Affordable Healthcare Act requirements for contraceptive coverage for its employees.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati granted its request and dismissed its appeal.
After U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell dismissed the original lawsuit, the Affordable Care Act was amended so that churches would be exempt from the contraceptive mandate. Thereby, changing the requirements of the law.
Campbell ruled that the lawsuits were premature. Most religious nonprofits don't have to provide contraception until 2014, thanks to a one-year safe harbor provision in the mandate.
The courts have ruled that the mandate has not harmed them yet.
The Nashville lawsuit is one of 43 with more than 100 plaintiffs nationwide, according to the Washington D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
The Catholic Diocese in Nashville and Pittsburgh, along with several religious colleges, including the University of Notre Dame, have lost at the district court level.
Corporation rights drive divergent rulings on contraception
(By Tom Howell Jr. | The Washington Times | March 25, 2013)
A federal judge has rejected a Michigan company's urgent plea for protection from the contraception mandate in President Obama's health-care law, noting that a corporation's rights are not always the same as an individual's.
Yet a different judge in the same U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan took a starkly different approach less than two weeks ago in granting a similar request -- although not on an emergency basis -- from another corporation. In that ruling, the judge evoked the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that reiterated that corporations have First Amendment speech rights.
The starkly divergent opinions reflect a broad judicial split on whether corporations may be insulated -- at least for now -- from a clause in the Affordable Care Act that requires many employers to insure contraception at no cost.
Splits at the district court level are typically resolved by the circuit courts, said I. Glenn Cohen, a health policy expert at Harvard Law School.
"That said, the fact that the two [in Michigan] happened in such quick succession -- and in more general the number of variant decisions across the country on the subject -- suggest it will have a decent chance of piquing the Supreme Court's interest," he said.
Dozens of religious nonprofits and more than 20 corporations have sued the Obama administration over the mandate. In court filings, the plaintiffs particularly object to covering morning-after pills, which they equate with abortion.
They have the support of conservatives in Congress, who say employers should be free to exercise their religious views and that Mr. Obama did not go far enough in his February proposal to put up a firewall between religious nonprofits and their employees' contraception coverage.
In Michigan, Judge Denise Page Hood ruled Friday that Eden Foods, a corporation whose owners conduct business in line with Catholic teaching, did not make a sufficient case in seeking immediate protection from the mandate.
"An incorporation's basic purpose is to create a legal entity, with legal rights, obligations, powers, and privileges different from those of natural individuals who created it, who own it, or whom it employs," she wrote.
Eden Foods is among six corporations that have been denied an injunction or temporary restraining order from the mandate, although 14 corporations have won provisional relief from various district and circuit courts, according to a decision-tracker from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Earlier this month, an order from the same district court shielded Thomas Monaghan's Domino's Farms office campus from the mandate. In harkening back to the Citizens United decision, he suggested that if a corporation can have free speech rights, then it can also have a religious viewpoint.
Opponents of the mandate say it violates their First Amendment rights and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law designed to protect Americans from laws that overly burden their exercise of religion.
But supporters of the mandate say nonprofits and secular companies are not allowed to impose their religious beliefs on their employees, and business owners would be loath to link their personal identities with their corporations if they were, say, being sued for a tort claim.
Erin Mersino, an attorney at the Thomas More Law Center who is handling the Eden case and others, noted that Friday's review was limited in scope and performed on an emergency basis.
While the opinion showed "a potential propensity to diverge from two prior opinions ruling to enjoin the mandate in the very same district court," she said in an email, "we hope that once the matter is fully briefed that the judge rules in favor of protecting constitutional rights and not in favor of eroding our freedom under the First Amendment."
13 attorneys general push Obama on contraception mandate
(By Rex Santus | Religion News Service | April 2, 2013)
Thirteen state attorneys general are urging the federal government to broaden religious exemptions for private businesses under the White House’s contraception mandate, claiming the policy violates religious freedoms.
Put simply, the group believes any employer who says he or she objects to contraception should not have to provide contraceptive coverage.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ latest proposal, unveiled Feb. 1, would require all employers to provide contraceptive coverage to workers; some nonprofit religious organizations — primarily houses of worship — that object to contraception on religious or moral grounds would be exempt.
In a March 26 letter, the coalition asserted that the exclusion should be extended beyond religious institutions to include all conscientious objectors.
At least two dozen suits by private businesses have been filed against the contraception mandate, and 16 have been granted a temporary injunction while the lawsuits are pending, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is spearheading much of the opposition to the mandate.
In addition, 30 lawsuits by nonprofit religious groups have been filed against the mandate, although most have been rejected as premature because fines for noncompliance don’t kick in until 2014.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, said the letter was submitted during the comment period that followed a Feb. 1 White House announcement that the exemptions would be expanded to include all houses of worship, dioceses and affiliated organizations such as colleges and hospitals.
DeWine said the revamped Feb. 1 compromise will still cost money, and the exemption should apply to all detractors, including those such as small business owners who may object to contraception.
“These regulations will force many Ohio employers to choose between harsh penalties and violating their conscience,” DeWine said in a news release. “This is another example of why Obamacare is bad policy, and it is another reason why I have joined attorneys general across this county to protect American families from its illegal overreach.”
HHS spokesman Fabien Levy said the mandate remains a proposal, and that the attorneys general are simply acting on their right to object during the public comment period, which ends April 8.
While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other critics continue to oppose the revamped exemptions as insufficient, some groups, such as Catholics United, have applauded the suggested changes.
“This is a victory not only for the Obama Administration, but for the Catholic Church,” said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, in a statement. “As Catholics United said from the very beginning, reasonable people knew it was right to be patient and hopeful that all sides could come together to solve this complex issue.”
The attorneys general of Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia signed the letter.
