The Affordable Care Act continues to threaten both religious and women’s freedom according to an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief filed with the United States Supreme Court by the Thomas More Society on behalf of Women Scholars. The high court prepares to hear oral arguments on May 6, 2020 – via historic teleconferencing prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic – in the ongoing effort to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception and abortifacients in direct violation of their reasonable conscientious beliefs.
A group of female scholars from dozens of law schools, universities, and seminaries is interceding on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a charitable Catholic organization that provides physical and spiritual care for the elderly in thirty countries. The Little Sisters are fighting to protect the total exemption granted them by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services against a challenge by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which argues that the same agency that created the mandate has no authority to rescind it.
Affordable Care Act Attacks Religious Freedom
Helen Alvaré, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, spoke on behalf of Women Scholars, saying, “As the battle between religious freedom and the Affordable Care Act continues, Little Sisters of the Poor returns to the United States Supreme Court to protect their exemption to the Department of Health and Human Service’s contraception mandate. Women Scholars supports the current administration’s expanded exemptions from the mandate because it threatens religious freedom and proposes a reductionist and harmful understanding of women’s freedom.”
The brief, filed on March 9, 2020, argues that actions by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which has challenged the Little Sisters’ exemption from the contraceptive mandate, are not in line with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The act prohibits any state from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion unless it furthers a governmental interest that must be “compelling.” Additionally, the law’s requirements have to be “in furtherance of” such an interest, and the compelling interest must be satisfied through application of the challenged law “to the person.”
Thomas More Society attorneys and Women Scholars charge that Pennsylvania cannot demonstrate that the government could meet each of these requirements for any of the claimed compelling interests in the contraception mandate.
Alvaré explained that the amicus brief concludes that every single interest proposed by the state fails one or more prongs of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act’s test. The Thomas More Society attorney details how Pennsylvania does not meet the necessary standard in each of the following interests declared by the state, including:
- public health
- gender equality
- enhancing women’s health care
- preventive health care
- reducing unintended pregnancy
- reducing the asserted effects of unintended pregnancy on women’s health
- preventing pregnancy among women with pre-existing conditions contraindicating for pregnancy
- other asserted beneficial health effects of contraception
“It’s time for this years-long fight against the contraceptive mandate to be resolved,” added Alvaré.
The Little Sisters of the Poor originally sued the federal government over the mandate that employers provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-causing drugs in health plans. The religious exemption initially provided by that the Obama administration was so narrow that many religious non-profits, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, were not eligible. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, who sent it back to the circuit court.
The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments, in both the Little Sisters’ case against Pennsylvania, and a related lawsuit by Pennsylvania against the Trump administration, on May 6, 2020, via teleconference.
– The Thomas More Society is a not-for-profit, national public interest law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Based in Chicago, the Thomas More Society defends and fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
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