freedom of and from religion

New Birth-Control Mandate Already Supreme Court–Bound

Photo: Jamie Grill/Corbis

Judging from the number of lawsuits challenging Obamacare’s birth-control mandate — the one that requires insurance companies to cover birth control, morning-after pills, and sterilization without co-payment — the provision may be in the Supreme Court as early as next term. More than 45 lawsuits have been filed by Roman Catholic, evangelical, and Mennonite employers, the New York Times reports, who say that by requiring them to pay for contraception, the government is forcing them to violate their faith.

The birth-control mandate’s defenders say that singling out birth control amounts to employers imposing their religious views on employees, 99 percent of whom will use contraception at some point in their lives, and at the cost of the state’s interest in women’s reproductive health. So far, the courts are a mixed bag. According to the Times, nine companies have received temporary orders not to comply with the law until the cases can be argued, five lawsuits have been rejected, and a half a dozen cases will be argued in time for the Supreme Court’s docket next term. On the plus side, if the Supreme Court decides that employers don’t have to pay for insurance policies that cover birth control they don’t believe in, surely that means Americans won’t have to pay taxes that cover wars they don’t believe in anymore, right?

Birth-Control Mandate Bound for Supreme Court