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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By M. Alex Johnson and Winston Wilde, NBC News
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a last-ditch plea from
Catholic groups Tuesday night to block a birth control mandate in the new
health care law for religious organizations, just hours before it was to
have gone into effect.
Sotomayor issued the stay at the request of an order of Catholic nuns in
Colorado, the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged. They are part of
a larger effort by Catholic-affiliated groups from around the nation to
halt provisions of the Affordable Care Act that require companies —
regardless of religious beliefs — to provide contraceptives to their
employees.
The groups want the mandate halted while the court considers a legal
challenge, brought by the for-profit company Hobby Lobby, arguing that the
requirement violates their religious liberties.
Hours before coverage was set to begin, Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor temporarily blocked a component of the Affordable Care Act that
mandated some religious groups provide birth control under their health
plans.
In June, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver waived millions of
dollars of fines against Hobby Lobby and a subsidiary, Mardel Christian
Stores, which refused to comply with the mandate, writing that the companies
were likely to win their claim that requiring for-profit companies to pay
for birth control was a violation of religious protections.
The motion for a stay went to Sotomayor as the justice with oversight for
the 10th Circuit. She gave the government until Friday to respond.
"Tomorrow, a regulatory mandate will expose numerous Catholic organizations
to draconian fines unless they abandon their religious convictions and take
actions that facilitate access to abortion-inducing products, contraceptives
, sterilization, and related education and counseling for their employees,"
the groups said in their request for a stay Tuesday.
The White House's reaction was muted.
"We defer to the Department of Justice on litigation matters, but remain
confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with
free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious
organizations with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from
having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage," a White House
official told NBC News.
The Obama administration had crafted a compromise, or accommodation, that
attempted to create a buffer for religiously affiliated hospitals,
universities and social service groups that oppose birth control. The law
requires insurers or the health plan’s outside administrator to pay for
birth control coverage and creates a way to reimburse them.
But for that to work, the nuns would have to sign a form authorizing their
insurance company to provide contraceptive coverage, which would still
violate their beliefs, their lawyer Mark L. Rienzi said.
“Without an emergency injunction, Mother Provincial Loraine Marie Maguire
has to decide between two courses of action: (a) sign and submit a self-
certification form, thereby violating her religious beliefs; or (b) refuse
to sign the form and pay ruinous fines,” he said.
Opponents of the mandate praised the action.
"The Obama administration's HHS mandate is an egregious and blatant
violation of the religious freedom that Americans have enjoyed for more than
220 years," Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement. "No American
should be forced to surrender their religious freedom or abandon their
deeply held religious beliefs. I applaud Justice Sotomayor's move to block
this onerous government overreach, which violates Americans' constitutional
rights."
NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell and Shawna Thomas and The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story stated the Affordable Care
Act requires companies to offer health-care coverage that provides abortion-
inducing drugs to their employees. It does not.
This story was originally published on Tue Dec 31, 2013 10:25 PM EST |
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