Dozens of faith and social justice groups have stepped up to support the plaintiffs in a protracted lawsuit filed to preserve the reproductive care rights of workers and college students.
Filed in 2017, Pennsylvania v. President of the United States is an effort to overturn regulations enacted by the first Trump administration exempting employers and universities from providing contraception coverage as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
The case is currently on appeal before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal district court vacated the regulations in August. The judge in that case described the rules as “arbitrary and capricious” and in violation of the Equal Protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and more than 60 other civil rights groups filed an amicus brief March 4 urging the appellate court to uphold the lower-court ruling.
The brief stressed that regulations granting religious exemptions for contraceptive care are “arbitrary and capricious,” not supported by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and overlook how religious exemptions could harm equality and the health of others, Americans United explained.
The groups that joined in the brief include the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ, Florida Interfaith Coalition for Reproductive Health and Justice, Global Justice Institute, Metropolitan Community Churches, Methodist Federation for Social Action, National Council of Jewish Women, Society for Humanistic Judaism and Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus.
Rachel Laser
“Religious freedom means employees and students must be free to make reproductive health care decisions based on their own needs and beliefs — not those of their employers, college administrators or politicians,” Americans United President Rachel Laser said. “Affordable access to birth control is critical to people’s health and equality. We urge the court to prevent the Trump administration from allowing religious freedom to be misused as a license to harm workers, students, and their families.”
A national recommitment to the separation of church and state is urgently needed, she added. “These Trump administration regulations are part of the Christian nationalist agenda to force everyone to live by one narrow set of religious beliefs”
Democracy Forward filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of 11 national medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, American College of Nurse-Midwives, American College of Physicians, American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, American Medical Women’s Association, North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, Society of General Internal Medicine and Society of Gynecologic Oncology.
“The Religious Rule and Moral Rule (collectively, the Final Rules) undermine access to contraception promised by the ACA by allowing virtually any employer or health insurance issuer to exclude contraception from insurance coverage by invoking religious or moral objections,” the brief explains.
“The Final Rules deprive countless women nationwide of the seamless, no-cost contraceptive coverage required by the ACA. Without insurance coverage of contraception generally or of their chosen method, women will either be forced into a two-tiered system to access contraceptive care, forced to pay out of pocket or prevented from accessing care all together.”
The health and economic benefits of readily available contraceptive care are beyond dispute, Democracy Forward Senior Counsel Kaitlyn Golden said separately.
“In fact, nearly every woman in America has used contraception at some point in their lives. But cost and access has put contraception out of reach for too many, creating sometimes dangerous circumstances,” she said. “That is cruel, unlawful, and an unacceptable intrusion of employers’ personal beliefs into women’s health care decisions.”