Category: Lawsuits

Washington state coercive pharmacy regulation rejected by court

Judge Robert B. Leighton of the United States District Court has ruled against the Washington State Department of Health. The case may be summarized by quoting the judge’s opening and concluding paragraphs:

This case presents a novel question: can the State compel licensed pharmacies and pharmacists to dispense lawfully prescribed emergency contraceptives over their sincere religious belief that doing so terminates a human life? In 2007, under pressure from the Governor, Planned Parenthood, and the Northwest Women’s Law Center, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy enacted regulations designed to do just that. . .

. . . The Board of Pharmacy’s 2007 rules are not neutral, and they are not generally applicable. They were designed instead to force religious objectors to dispense Plan B, and they sought to do so despite the fact that refusals to deliver for all sorts of secular reasons were permitted. The rules are unconstitutional as applied to Plaintiffs. The Court will therefore permanently enjoin their enforcement against Plaintiffs.

[Full text of ruling]

Three more universities sue US federal government because of HHS mandate

Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, Louisiana College in Alexandria, Louisiana, and Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania have filed civil suits against the US federal government in response to an Obama adminstration regulation that will force objecting employers to provide insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal  drugs.

 

Ave Maria University files federal suit to protect religious identity

NEWS RELEASE

Ave Maria University

NAPLES, FL (February 21, 2012) –Jim Towey, Ave Maria University President announced today that the University is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from a federal court in Florida, because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services demands the University offer health plan services that undermine its firmly-held religious convictions.

“The federal government has no right to coerce the University into funding contraceptive services that include abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization, in the health plan we offer our employees,” said Towey. “Under the federal mandate Ave Maria University would be paying for these drugs if we complied with the law. So we will not. We are prepared to discontinue our health plan and pay the $2,000 per employee, per year fine rather than comply with an unjust, immoral mandate in violation of our rights of conscience.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed suit this morning on behalf of the University.

“The federal mandate puts Ave Maria in a terrible bind,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for the Becket Fund. “Either it betrays its faith and covers the drugs, or else it ends employee health benefits and pays hundreds of thousands in annual fines.”

Towey, former head of the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is determined to stop the Administration’s assault on religious freedom. “Allowing a U.S. president of any political party or spiritual belief to force conformance to his or her religious or secular orthodoxy through executive action, is a perilous precedent,” said Towey. “I hope all of my colleagues in academia, including Catholic higher education, awaken to this danger.”

Ave Maria University’s case is the fourth lawsuit brought by the Becket Fund challenging the Obama administration’s abortion drug mandate. The Becket Fund also represents Belmont Abbey College (a Catholic college in North Carolina), Colorado Christian University (a nondenominational Christian University outside Denver), and the Eternal Word Television Network.

ADF, Louisiana College challenge Obama mandate

NEWS RELEASE

Alliance Defence  Fund

ALEXANDRIA, La. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Louisiana College Saturday against the Obama administration. The lawsuit challenges the administration’s unconstitutional mandate that religious employers provide abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception at no cost to employees regardless of religious or moral objections.

“People of faith shouldn’t be punished by the government for following their beliefs when making decisions for themselves or their organizations,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “The Obama administration invented a fake ‘right’ to get ‘free’ abortion pills and sterilization and elevated it above real freedoms protected by the First Amendment. This calculated and intentional attempt to eradicate constitutional protections should terrify every freedom-loving American.”

“The Obama administration has purposely transformed a non-existent problem–access to contraception–into a constitutional crisis,” said ADF-allied attorney and co-counsel Mike Johnson, dean of Louisiana College’s Pressler School of Law. “This mandate offers no choice; Americans either comply and abandon their convictions or resist and be punished.”

Attorney sound bites: Kevin Theriot | Mike Johnson

President Obama held a press conference on Feb. 10 to offer a “compromise” under which some religious non-profit organizations would not have to comply with the mandate. Instead, the employer’s insurer would be required to offer the employer’s employees the same coverage at no charge. The “compromise,” however, does not exist in the rules or guidance Obama issued on Feb. 10, and the administration is not required to formally propose it.

Theriot explained that even if the proposed change did exist and had coherent boundaries, it would still require the employer to facilitate coverage by providing and paying for an objectionable plan, the costs of which would be passed on to the employers and/or employees via premiums.

“The time for silence is over,” said Louisiana College President Dr. Joe W. Aguillard. “Louisiana College will not sit by and allow this or any government to usurp our God-given religious freedoms and our time-honored Baptist heritage.”

The new lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Louisiana College v. Sebelius, argues that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the First and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

  • Pronunciation guide: Theriot (TAIR’-ee-oh)
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

ADF, Geneva College to reveal lawsuit against Obama mandate Tuesday

NEWS RELEASE

Alliance Defence  Fund

WHO: ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor, Geneva College President Ken Smith

WHAT: Press conference announcing new lawsuit against Obama birth control/abortifacient mandate

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 1:30 p.m. EST

WHERE: Geneva College, 3200 College Ave., Skye Lounge Student Center, Beaver Falls

BEAVER FALLS, Pa. — Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor will join Geneva College President Ken Smith Tuesday at a press conference to announce a new federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s unconstitutional mandate that religious employers provide abortifacients, sterilization, and contraception to employees regardless of religious or moral objections.

“People of faith shouldn’t be punished by the state for following that faith in making decisions for themselves or their organizations,” said Baylor. “Every American should know that a government with the power to do this to anyone can do this–and worse–to everyone.”

ADF attorney sound bite: Gregory S. Baylor

“At Geneva College, we only have one Lord, and he does not live in Washington, D.C.,” Smith said. “The First Amendment protects Americans from mandates that require us to act against our own convictions. We find the mandate to provide our faculty, staff, and students with insurance that provides pills to abort babies totally abhorrent and unacceptable. The government shouldn’t be able to force anyone to buy or sell insurance that subsidizes morally objectionable treatments.”

The lawsuit, Geneva College v. Sebelius, will be filed in federal court Tuesday.

Geneva College is a comprehensive Christian college of the arts, sciences, and professional studies founded in the tradition of the Reformed Presbyterian faith. According to its website, Geneva provides “an academically rigorous education comprised of distinctive and innovative courses. Geneva offers over 40 undergraduate majors and seven master’s degree programs.”

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.