Written by Don Byrd
As I tweeted earlier today (you can follow me @BJCblog), now that the Affordable Care Act has been upheld, and its implementation is moving forward, critics of the reform effort are ready to return the contraception coverage controversy to the forefront (just when you thought it was safe). The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein reports:
Attorneys in cases alleging religious liberty violations saw lots of fodder in Thursday’s ruling and predicted much more litigation now that the Act’s basic existence was affirmed.
“I think the court’s decision makes clear Obama is still subject to legal challenges and that the Supreme Court is willing to entertain that the HHS regulations violate the rights of religious freedom,” said Hanna Smith, senior counsel at the Becket Fund, a D.C. firm involved in some of the 23 pending lawsuits against the White House.
…
Mark Rienzi, another Becket attorney, said in a phone conference call that the ruling today only spoke to whether Congress had the right to pass the act – not on the details of how it’s implemented.“It seems to me the administration has won one legal challenge and there are 23 others waiting in the wings,” he said.
How much more discussion about contraception can we really take? Here’s hoping that both religious advocates and the Obama Administration continue to negotiate, cooler heads prevail, and consensus is realized about a proper religious exemption from the coverage requirement while maintaining proper affordable health care access to all. The sooner the better.
