Breaking: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Rule Allowing Employers With Sincere Moral or Religious Objections to Deny Employees Right to Birth Control Coverage Under Affordable Care Act

Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, a 7 - 2 decision holding that a 2017 Trump administration rule that allowed private employers with sincere moral or religious objections to opt out of providing birth control to employees to be lawful.

For those needing a refresher, the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare” as many call it), instructs health plans to provide coverage for “additional preventative care and screenings” for women.  The Health Resources and Services Administration (a division of the Department of Health and Human Services) subsequently issued guidelines that required health plans to provide access to birth control at no cost to the women covered under the plans.  However, churches and other houses of worship were excluded from this requirement.  Religious nonprofits that objected to the provision were also given an opportunity to opt out.

In 2014, the Supreme Court held in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that a corporation owned by a religious family which objected to having to provide female employees with access to contraceptives could opt out of the ACA requirement.  In 2016, the Court was confronted with whether an improper burden on the exercise of the religion of religious nonprofits arose by requiring these nonprofits to notify the Department of Health and Human Services of their objection to the ACA requirement.  However, with the Supreme Court only having eight justices at the time, the matter was not resolved and the case was remanded back to the lower courts with instructions that a compromise be found with respect to the nonprofits’ religious beliefs while still allowing the female employees to receive their full contraceptive coverage as provided by the ACA.

Fast forward to today’s ruling, in which the Court weighed in on the Trump administration’s new rules that extended the exemption from the birth control requirement to also cover private employers that had sincere moral or religious objections to providing their female employees with this coverage.  In Little Sisters of the Poor, both Pennsylvania and New Jersey challenged the new rules on the grounds that they violated both the ACA and federal laws that govern administrative agencies.  A lower court sided with the states and blocked enforcement of the rule.  The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling.

In the Supreme Court’s opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority and noted that a plain reading of the ACA provides that the Trump administration (or any Presidential administration, really) has “virtually unbridled discretion” to decide what counts as required coverage under the ACA and any moral or religious exemptions that may be necessary.  Justice Thomas went on to point out that “no language in the statute [ACA] itself even hints that Congress intended that contraception should or must be covered.  It was Congress, not the [Trump administration] that declined to expressly require the contraceptive coverage in the ACA itself.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh joined Thomas’ decision.  Justice Elena Kagan filed a concurring opinion (in which Justice Stephen Breyer joined) and recognized that while the Trump administration had the authority to grant religious exemptions to the ACA birth control requirement, the case should be sent back to the lower court for further review.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a dissent (joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor) arguing that the majority opinion’s decision favored religious freedom to the detriment of individual rights.

After a few unfavorable results for the Trump administration in recent weeks, this 7 - 2 decision is nothing short of a resounding victory.

For a copy of the Court’s opinion:  https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf