CHICAGO – A federal appeals
court on Friday ruled against the University of Notre Dame in a case over parts
of the federal health care law that forces it to provide health insurance for
students and employees that covers contraceptives.
The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals in Chicago upheld a federal judge's earlier ruling that denied the
Roman Catholic school's request for a preliminary injunction that would prevent
it from having to comply with the birth control requirement as the university's
lawsuit moves
The University of Notre Dame had filed another lawsuit
opposing portions of the federal health care overhaul that forces it to provide
health insurance for students and employees that includes birth control, saying
it contravenes the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in
South Bend claims the Affordable Health Care Act violates Notre Dame's freedom
to practice religion without government interference. Under the law, employers
must provide insurance that covers a range of preventive care, free of charge,
including contraception. The Catholic Church prohibits the use of
contraceptives.
The lawsuit challenged a compromise, or
accomodations, offered by the Obama administration that attempted to create a
buffer for religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and social service
groups that oppose birth control. The law requires insurers or the health
plan's outside administrator to pay for birth control coverage and creates a
way to reimburse them.
The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president,
said that wasn't enough.
"The government's accommodations would
require us to forfeit our rights, to facilitate and become entangled in a
program inconsistent with Catholic teaching and to create the impression that
the university cooperates with and condones activities incompatible with its
mission," he said in a statement.
Notre Dame says in the lawsuit that its
employee health plans are self-insured, covering about 4,600 employees and a
total of about 11,000 people. Its student health plans cover about 2,600
students. The lawsuit says the health plans do not cover abortion-inducing
products, contraceptives or sterilization.
"The U.S. government mandate, therefore,
requires Notre Dame to do precisely what its sincerely held religious beliefs
prohibit — pay for, facilitate access to, and/or become entangled in the
provision of objectionable products and services or else incur crippling
sanctions," the lawsuit says.
Notre Dame argues that the fines of $2,000 per
employee if it eliminates its employee health plan, or $100 a day for each
affected beneficiary if it refuses to provide or facilitate the coverage, would
coerce it into violating its religious beliefs.
Daniel Conkle, an Indiana University professor
of law and adjunct professor of religious studies, said Notre Dame's arguments
are similar those in a case last month where a federal judge in Pennsylvania
granted the Pittsburgh and Erie Catholic dioceses a delay in complying with the
federal mandates.
The Obama administration argues that the burden
on the Catholic entities is minimal, Conkle said. Notre Dame and other Catholic
groups say it's substantial.
Steve Schneck, director of the Institute for
Policy Research & Catholic Studies at Catholic University of America, said
the administration's accommodations "are sufficient to protect the
Catholic conscience for administrators of these plans at Catholic universities."
But he said the lawsuits were still needed.
The accommodations "really rest on the
good graces of the administration and those good graces could disappear with a
new administration," he said.
Notre Dame argues that it is not seeking to
impose its religious beliefs on others, but that it just wants to protect its
right to the free exercise of its religion. The lawsuit argues that the
government could pay for contraception through the expansion of its existing
network of family planning clinics or by creating a broader exemption for
religious employers.
Notre Dame filed a similar lawsuit in May 2012.
U.S. District Judge Robert Miller Jr. dismissed that case last December, saying
the university wasn't facing any imminent penalty or restrictions because the
federal government was reworking some of the coverage regulations.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to
consider two cases in which business have objected to covering birth control
for employees on religious grounds. Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned arts and
crafts chain with 13,000 full-time employees, won its case in lower courts,
while Conestoga Wood Specialties,
a Mennonite-owned company that employs 950 people in making wood cabinets, lost
its claims in lower courts.
About 40 for-profit companies have requested an
exemption from covering some or all forms of contraception.
Adapted from the USA Today www.usatoday.org.us
By GK
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