A federal court ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor on Wednesday in a years-long effort by blue states to force the order of Catholic nuns who care for the elderly and the poor to provide contraceptives in their healthcare plan or face millions of dollars in fines.
The U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sided with New Jersey and Pennsylvania, finding that religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate granted by the federal government during the first Trump administration were “arbitrary and capricious” and did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in the order that the religious exemptions are “vacated in their entirety.”
Beetlestone issued the order despite two separate Supreme Court rulings upholding religious exemptions to the ACA’s contraception mandate.
Under President Obama, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate as part of the ACA requiring employers to provide contraceptives in their health insurance plans, including some that are considered abortifacients. The original mandate did not provide a religious exemption for groups like Little Sisters of the Poor; however, the Supreme Court sided with the group in 2016. In response, the federal government issued a rule providing religious exemptions during President Trump’s first term in 2017.
More than a dozen states promptly sued over the updated rule, and the case made its way up to the Supreme Court again in 2020, where Little Sisters of the Poor secured another victory. Pennsylvania and New Jersey have continued the legal battle in a lower court, arguing different angles of the case that were not previously addressed by the nation’s high court.
Mark Rienzi, president of Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the Little Sisters, accused the district court of “bless[ing] an out-of-control effort by Pennsylvania and New Jersey to attack the Little Sisters and religious liberty.”
“It’s bad enough that the district court issued a nationwide ruling invalidating federal religious conscience rules. But even worse is that the district court simply ducked the glaring constitutional issues in this case, after waiting five years and not even holding a hearing,” Rienzi said in a statement.
“It is absurd to think the Little Sisters might need yet another trip to the Supreme Court to end what has now been more than a dozen years of litigation over the same issue. We will fight as far as we need to fight to protect the Little Sisters’ right to care for the elderly in peace,” he continued.
Little Sisters of the Poor will appeal the ruling in the coming weeks, according to Becket.
“As Little Sisters of the Poor, we dedicate our lives to caring for the elderly poor until God calls them home,” Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for the right to carry out our mission without violating our faith, and we pray Pennsylvania and New Jersey will end this needless harassment.”
The case is Pennsylvania v. Trump, No. 17-4540 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
