BJC Staff Reports
A federal judge in Colorado granted a temporary injunction exempting a secular business owner from complying with the Obama administration’s contraceptive coverage mandate, which took effect Aug. 1 and was authorized by the Affordable Care Act.
Hercules Industries, a private air conditioning firm, is owned and operated by a Catholic family that objects on religious grounds to providing employees with free access to birth control. The employers argue that because their religious beliefs are central to the company’s business model, the contraceptive mandate impermissibly burdens their free exercise of religion in violation of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Notably, Hercules Industries is the first secular, for-profit employer to challenge the mandate in court.
Because U.S. District Judge John L. Kane found that the government is not likely to prevail in the lawsuit, he issued the temporary injunction pending the outcome of the case. Among other things, Kane concluded that because “[t]he government has exempted over 190 million health plan participants and beneficiaries from the preventive care coverage mandate[,] this massive exemption completely undermines any compelling [governmental] interest in applying the preventive care coverage mandate to Plaintiffs.”
The order emphasized that the injunction is limited and applies only to the parties in this case.
The Colorado District Court is the first federal court to halt enforcement of the controversial contraceptive provision. Religiously-affiliated employers with objections to contraceptive coverage currently fall within a safe harbor period that prevents enforcement against them through August 2013. The administration has said it intends to formulate alternatives to the current rule that will protect religious institutions. As a result, other federal courts have dismissed similar lawsuits on the grounds that legal challenges are not yet ripe for adjudication, since it is unclear how the final policies will affect such organizations when the safe harbor period expires.
The case, Newland v. Sebelius, will continue making its way through the judicial process.
From the September 2012 Report from the Capital. Click here for the next article.
