An injunction against the federal contraception mandate granted to a
group of non-profit Catholic organizations in Western Pennsylvania has
been hailed as a key win for religious liberty.
Brandon McGinley, field director for the Pennsylvania Family Institute,
told CNA on Nov. 22 that the decision is a “victory for religious
freedom.”
He pointed to the judge’s “strong argument that the Free Exercise of
Religion cannot be reduced to a ‘Freedom of Worship,’” saying that this
should guide other courts in considering the mandate.
The case was brought by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh,
as well as its affiliates the St. Martin Center and Prince of Peace
Center of the Diocese of Erie, along with Erie Catholic Preparatory
School.
It challenged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate on grounds of religious freedom.
Issued under the Affordable Care Act, the mandate requires employers to
offer health insurance plans covering early abortion-inducing drugs,
sterilizations and contraceptives to their employees, even if doing so
violates their deeply-held religious convictions.
The regulation has drawn widespread criticism, as well as lawsuits from
more than 200 plaintiffs. Faced with opposition from religious groups
and individuals, the Obama administration issued a revision, exempting
houses of worship and their affiliated organizations, but placing other
religious non-profits under a separate “accommodation,” so that their
insurers would directly provide the coverage.
Critics of the mandate have argued that the accommodation is
insufficient, still requiring objecting groups to facilitate the
coverage and possibly leading them to indirectly fund it.
In deciding the Pennsylvania case, the U.S. district judge ruled that
the mandate would redefine “the Right to the Free Exercise of Religion
as set forth in the First Amendment to a Right to Worship only,” a move
which will “sever the Catholic Church into two parts,” - “worship and
faith, and ‘good works.’”
He also commented that the government “has failed to offer any testimony
or other evidence” showing that employees who do not receive
contraception from religious employers “have, in fact, suffered in the
past, or will in the future, any ‘negative health or other outcomes,’
without the enforcement of the contraceptive mandate.”
“In fact, the evidence was to the contrary,” the judge said.
Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh commended the decision in a statement
for the diocese, saying that the Catholic commitment to providing
healthcare and services for the poor is “central” to “the practice of
faith,” and that the decision took “an important step in recognizing
this obvious, fundamental truth.”
Matt Bowman, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is
representing some of the organizations challenging the contraception
mandate, called the decision “a huge victory.”
“The injunction is the first one that has been thoroughly litigated for a
Catholic non-profit organization, and only the second one so litigated
for a non-profit entity of any kind,” he said in a post on
CatholicVote.org.
The decision, he explained, “defeats the so-called ‘accommodation’ that
President Obama has attempted to thrust on non-profit religious groups,”
and “vindicates the U.S. Bishops’ uncompromising stance on the
abortion-pill and birth control mandate, which they recently reaffirmed
at their annual meeting.”
“America cherishes religious freedom for all people,” Bowman commented.
“Its jurisprudence is now doing so against an increasingly massive and
insistent federal government that desires to impose its own anti-life
and anti-fertility image on every citizen and organization in the
nation.”