Supreme Court Undercuts Obamacare Birth Control Mandate

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of a Trump administration decision to expand the types of organizations that may opt out of the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The mandate requires employers to provide cost-free access to contraceptive care to employees.

At issue was a 2018 decision made by the Trump administration to create exemptions to the law for religious groups and nonreligious employers with moral and religious objections.

In a 7-2 decision, the high court said the administration acted properly when it made the change, which lower courts had blocked.

“We hold today that the Departments had the statutory authority to craft that exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption. We further hold that the rules promulgating these exemptions are free from procedural defects,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the court.

The government had estimated that the rule changes would cause about 70,000 women, and at most 126,000 women, to lose contraception coverage in one year, The Associated Press reported.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited those numbers in dissenting.

“In accommodating claims of religious freedom, this Court has taken a balanced approach, one that does not allow the religious beliefs of some to overwhelm the rights and interests of others who do not share those beliefs. Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree,” she wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor also dissented.

Birth control has been a point of contention since the Affordable Care Act was passed.

Initially, churches, synagogues and mosques were exempt from the contraceptive coverage requirement. The Obama administration also created a way for religiously affiliated organizations including hospitals, universities and charities could opt out of paying for contraception, but women on their health plans would still get no-cost birth control, AP reported.

Some groups, however, complained the opt-out process itself violated their religious beliefs.

That opt-out process was the subject of a 2016 Supreme Court case, but the court, with only eight justices at the time because of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, didn’t decide the issue. It instead sent both sides back to see if they could work out a compromise.

After the Trump administration took over, officials announced a rule change that allows many companies and organization with religious or moral objections to opt out of covering birth control without providing an alternate avenue for coverage, according to AP. However, the change was blocked by courts after New Jersey and Pennsylvania challenged it.

Court Sides With California Schools, Preventing Discrimination Suits

Separately on Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided with two Catholic schools in California in a decision underscoring that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination.

That ruling was also 7-2, with Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissenting.

The court had ruled unanimously in 2012 that the Constitution prevents ministers from suing their churches for employment discrimination, but at that time the justices didn’t specifically define who counts as a minister, AP reported.

The case decided on Wednesday involved lay teachers whose contracts had not been renewed.