A state attorney general can continue to challenge a Catholic nursing home provider’s exemption from the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
Little Sisters of the Poor will go back to court after a Pennsylvania district court ruled Monday that Attorney General Josh Shapiro can continue to challenge the Sisters’ exemption from the mandate.
“We never wanted this fight, and we regret that after a long legal battle it is still not over,” Little Sisters of the Poor’s Mother Loraine Marie Maguire said in a statement, issued by law firm Becket on Monday. “We pray that we can once again devote our lives to our ministry of serving the elderly poor as we have for over 175 years without being forced to violate our faith.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also can proceed with his challenge over the religious exemption, a California district court also ruled Sunday.
“The law couldn’t be clearer — employers have no business interfering in women’s healthcare decisions,” Becerra said Sunday. “Today’s court ruling stops another attempt by the Trump administration to trample on women’s access to basic reproductive care.”
The Little Sisters of the Poor were originally part of a larger lawsuit with groups claiming a moral objection to having to provide contraceptive coverage for women under employer insurance plans. While the Obama administration allowed religious exemptions, under which the Little Sisters would not have had to provide coverage, the provider argued that signing the waiver was still a violation of its religious freedoms.
The case was heard by the Supreme Court, which bounced it to lower courts.
President Trump’s administration announced plans to roll back the mandate in 2017 and allow employers to opt out, but that was met with legal challenges from multiple states attorneys and other groups.
