On Wednesday, June 8, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump Administration’s religious and moral exemption to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The contraception mandate required employers to provide free coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and “emergency birth control” (Plan B) in employee health plans. The Trump administration granted the religious and moral exemption, but there have been lawsuits from a variety of states opposing the exemption, saying the Trump Administration didn’t have authority to grant the exemption.
The Catholic group, Little Sisters of the Poor, challenged the legality of this. They fought back on the Obamacare contraception mandate since it is against their Catholic religion to use contraceptives and they should not be forced to provide it to their employees if they are religiously opposed to it. The Catholic church is pro-life and believes in preserving life from it’s natural beginning to its natural end. However, the opposition believes the burden for women to find affordable contraception outweighs any moral/religious liberty and is the financial responsibility of the employer. Finally, after a seven-year battle, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor and decided that they can be legally exempted from providing contraceptives to employees.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion on the case said the government “had the statutory authority to craft that exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption.”
This is a big win for the pro-life movement as President Donald Trump has aggressively defended life and religious-freedom. This Supreme Court ruling now sets precedence for other pro-life businesses and organizations, including publicly traded corporations and universities, to be exempt from paying for contraceptives or abortions. In the near future there will potentially be many other private employers exempting themselves.
