Written by Don Byrd
A federal judge in Missouri dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate for secular business owners that object on religious grounds. The court held that the coverage requirement is not an infringement on free exercise. (emphasis added)
[T]he Court does not doubt the sincerity of plaintiffs’ beliefs, nor does the Court question the centrality of plaintiffs’ condemnation of contraception to their exercise of the Catholic religion.
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Plaintiffs allege that the preventive services coverage regulations impose a similar ultimatum, and therefore substantially burden their free exercise of religion “by coercing Plaintiffs to choose between conducting their business in accordance with their religious beliefs or paying substantial penalties to the government.” However, the challenged regulations do not demand that plaintiffs alter their behavior in a manner that will directly and inevitably prevent plaintiffs from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs. Frank O’Brien is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion. Instead, plaintiffs remain free to exercise their religion, by not using contraceptives and by discouraging employees from using contraceptives. The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by OIH’s plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. This Court rejects the proposition that requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on plaintiff’s religious exercise.
“Plaintiffs remain free to exercise their religion” is the heart of Judge Carol Jackson’s decision. Is she right?
