A federal court in the US state of Missouri has ruled that the Obama administration’s healthcare mandate for employers cannot compel religious organisations to provide the ‘Morning-After Pill’ to workers. The ‘Morning-After Pill’ can act as an abortifacient.
According to Lifesite News, a three-judge panel of the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in St Louis, in making its ruling against provisions of the Affordable Care Act (referred to as Obamacare) said it respected employers’ “sincere religious belief that their participation in the accommodation process makes them morally and spiritually complicit in providing abortifacient coverage.”
The judge’s ruling upheld the decisions of two lower courts which similarly sought to defend the right of religious bodies to reject the Affordable Care Act.
Under the terms of the act, while employers must pay for contraception, sterilisation and abortion coverage in employee insurance schemes, those claiming both religious affiliation and non-profit status are entitled to opt out of the provision. However, in doing so, the same law requires that insurers must provide the coverage nonetheless, without charging the employer.
This arrangement has not placated religious groups, who have argued in a raft of legal challenges to the Act that the compromise still makes them complicit in medical practices against their ethos and beliefs. However, until the 8th Circuit Court ruling, all such challenges had been struck down.
The successful challenge was taken by four religion-based bodies: Heartland Christian College and CNS International Ministries Inc., based in Missouri, and the Iowa-based Dordt College and Cornerstone University. In their lawsuit, the organisations cited emergency contraceptives they see as abortifaceants and argued that the Affordable Healthcare Act opt-out violates their conscience protections under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
