Editors Note: On May 16, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, sent the case back to the lower courts to examine an alternative accommodation to the mandate.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments from the Little Sisters of the Poor—a faith-based organization that ministers to the economically disadvantaged elderly—as they challenge the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate.
This mandate—which orders them and other ministries to provide sterilization, contraception, and abortive drugs and devices as part of their employees’ medical insurance plan—forces the organization and other religious nonprofits to violate their beliefs.
Organizations that don’t comply are subject to fines of up to $100 per employee, per day. For Little Sisters of the Poor, that could add up to $70 million per year in federal fines.
The White House has said Little Sisters of the Poor does not directly have to pay for contraception under the HHS mandate.
But Hannah Smith, senior counsel of the Becket Fund—a law firm that protects religious liberty for all faiths—says that is not true.
“The government acknowledges that it must use the Little Sisters’ health insurance plan to effectuate the delivery of these services—even under it’s so called ‘accommodation.’ So, it’s simply not true that the government can just let Little Sisters sign this little form, wash their hands and be done with it,” she explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s really troubling why the government is forcing Little Sisters of the Poor to use their health plan to distribute these services when they let large corporations off … they are simply not subject to the mandate at all.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan echoed Smith’s sentiments when he spoke on the House floor yesterday: “This is an order of Catholic nuns who serve the poor in 31 countries … they are the definition of public service. The last thing the federal government should do is make their jobs harder.”
And at a time when many social conservatives would see the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s absence as a disadvantage for their cause, Smith is undaunted.
“We are very confident that our arguments are strong and that we’re going to prevail in this case, not withstanding the fact that—regrettably—we don’t have Justice Scalia on the court anymore,” she said.
“We don’t think it’s even close. We think the government has simply not proved its case—that the exchanges are not an acceptable alternative that can be used to distribute these services outside the Little Sisters’ plan. The government has gone out of its way—repeatedly—to extol the virtues of the exchanges. And it’s simply beyond reason why those exchanges can’t also be used for the female employees once they get the exchanges they deserve.”
Several other faith-based institutions—including East Texas Baptist University and Geneva College—will also challenge the HHS mandate today at the Supreme Court.
Editor’s note: we will update this article as this case develops.
