A group of nuns and other religious groups with charitable missions are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a New York state mandate that would force them to cover abortions in their employee health insurance plans.
“New York’s abortion mandate is so extreme that not even Jesus, Mother Teresa, or Mahatma Gandhi would qualify for an exemption,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, the nonprofit religious liberty law firm that is arguing on behalf of the nuns. “The justices should exempt religious organizations once and for all so they can focus on caring for the most vulnerable.”
The religious groups challenging the abortion mandate include a group of Carmelite sisters, the First Bible Baptist Church, the Sisterhood of St. Mary, an Anglican Episcopal monastic order of contemplative religious sisters, and Catholic Charities, which provide adoption and maternity services.
The New York abortion mandate “imposes immense burdens on countless religious entities opposed to abortion as a matter of deep-seated religious conviction,” reads the Sept. 18 petition to the Supreme Court.
The petition notes that permitting some religious conduct for preferred subsets of religious groups but forbidding others “is a particularly pernicious form of discrimination under the First Amendment.”
The September petition follows a series of legal issues beginning in 2017, when a group of Anglican and Catholic nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and other faith-based ministries sued over the mandate, which prohibited insurance policies from excluding coverage for abortions. The lower courts initially ruled against them, but Supreme Court justices reversed the lower court rulings in 2021 and told them to reconsider in light of Fulton v. Philadelphia, which brought up similar free exercise issues. The state courts ruled against the religious organizations again, so the religious groups have returned to the Supreme Court.
“Religious groups in New York should not be required to provide insurance coverage that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” said Noel J. Francisco, partner-in-charge of Jones Day’s Washington office, which is also arguing on behalf of the nuns. “We are asking the court to protect religious freedom and make clear that the mandate cannot be applied to this diverse group of religious organizations.”
Initially, the proposed abortion mandate allowed all employers with religious objections to receive an exemption. However, New York redefined the exemption to include only religious groups that primarily teach religion and organizations that primarily serve and hire those who share their faith. Ministries such as the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, which runs a nursing home, do not qualify for the exemption because they serve those in need regardless of religious affiliation.
“It thus places special burdens on religious traditions holding service of others to be a religious command,” the lawsuit noted.
In addition to the Carmelite sisters, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Baptist groups are also “deemed insufficiently religious to qualify for a religious exemption — and so are forced to cover abortions in their employee health plans.”
The court will consider whether it will hear the case later this fall.
