The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a group of nuns who challenged New York’s abortion mandate that attempted to force religious organizations to cover abortions in their employee health plans.
On Monday, the high court ordered New York courts to reconsider the state’s requirements that faith-based organizations must pay for abortions as part of employers’ insurance.
As CBN News has reported, the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, along with a diverse coalition of Anglican and Catholic nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social ministries, sued “the Empire State” after it mandated that they provide abortion in their employee health insurance plans in violation of their religious beliefs.
According to Becket Law, a nonprofit legal group, the New York State Department of Financial Services initially proposed the abortion mandate in 2017 but promised to exempt employers with religious exemptions.
However, after facing pressure from abortion activists, New York narrowed the exemption to cover only religious groups that primarily teach religion, serve, and hire those who share their faith.
That meant that many faith-based organizations, like the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, would still be forced to violate their religious convictions about the sanctity of life.
In Diocese of Albany v. Harris, the group and other faith-based groups sued the state for religious protections, but New York refused to protect the religious organizations.
In 2021, Becket, Jones Day, and Tobin and Dempf, LLP, asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
The high court has now overruled the New York courts that had ruled against the nuns.
The Supreme Court told those courts to reconsider the case in light of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case in which the high court ruled that Philadelphia was wrong to reject Catholic Social Services because the group said it wouldn’t violate its religious beliefs and place children with same-sex couples.
New York state courts had ignored that order, claiming the case was inapplicable. But the Supreme Court says the state courts were wrong and must now reconsider in light of Becket’s unanimous victory in an additional case – Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission.
In that Wisconsin ruling, the Supreme Court declared that the state violated a Catholic charity’s First Amendment religious freedom guarantee when it tried to force it to pay state unemployment taxes while exempting other faith groups.
“For the second time in four years, the Supreme Court has made clear that bully tactics like these have no place in our nation or our law. We are confident that these religious groups will finally be able to care for the most vulnerable consistent with their beliefs,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket.
Becket cites that the Wisconsin ruling dictates “that government cannot use schemes like New York’s to discriminate among religious people.”
Attorneys with Becket are urging New York’s court to move quickly and finally fix the problem facing the Catholic nuns.
“Today is a win for nuns in New York who are challenging having to pay for abortions,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “These nuns and religious ministries want to focus on their work to serve others rather than being in court. We are going to urge the New York courts to move quickly and resolve this once and for all.”
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