Nonreligious anti-abortion organizations are not exempt from the Affordable Care Act's mandate that their health insurers cover birth control in employees' insurance plans, a federal appeals court has ruled.
On Friday, a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that secular groups even if their stance on abortion aligns with religious groups are not entitled to religious exemption from the contraceptive mandate in the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare.
The court's ruling affirms a federal judge's dismissal of a challenge to the mandate under the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution filed by Real Alternatives Inc., which describes itself as a life-affirming pregnancy-support organization not affiliated with any religious body.
Real Alternatives is in no way like a religious denomination or one of its nontheistic counterparts not in structure, not in aim, not in purpose, and not in function, Senior Third Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell wrote in the court's majority opinion, joined by Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. We do not doubt that Real Alternatives's stance on contraceptives is grounded in sincerely-held moral values, but 'religion is not generally confined to one question or one moral teaching; it has a broader scope.'
The majority's holding drew a sharp rebuke from dissenting judge Kent A. Jordan, who disagreed with the court's reasoning that religious employees' freedom to worship is not impinged by subscribing to a health plan that provides coverage for birth control.
According to the government, the mandate has nothing to do with deep questions about the beginning of life, or the boundaries of moral culpability, or about faith and one's obligations to God, Jordan said. Religious beliefs are not being burdened in any meaningful sense, so people should just stop complaining. That is the line pressed by the United States Department of Justice, and it is the line accepted by my colleagues in the majority, but I reject it.
This story is developing.