Posted on 06/29/2015 1:49:52 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
Continuing to make sure that female employees and students have access to birth control, but that religious non-profit organizations where those women work or study do not have to provide it, the Supreme Court took action Monday on a case that is developing for next Term.
In a two-page order, the Court turned aside requests by Roman Catholic colleges, charities, and other non-profits in Pennsylvania to keep on hold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, rejecting those groups challenge to the Affordable Care Acts contraceptive mandate. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., had temporarily put that ruling on hold last April until further legal papers were filed, but had taken no further action since.
The new order clears the way for the Third Circuits decision to go into effect, but it contains two sets of requirements. (The requirements parallel what the Court had done last year in the separate case of Wheaton College, a religious institution in Illinois.)
First, the religious groups must provide some type of notice to the federal Department of Health and Human Services that they want and are entitled to a religious exemption from the mandate. If the groups do that, the government may not enforce the mandate directly against them, while the Court is pondering whether to review the case itself.
Second, the women who are employed by or are students at the religious organizations are assured that they will have access, at no cost to them, of birth control methods and devices approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The government can go ahead, the Court made clear, and make arrangements for the health insurance plans in effect for the religious groups to assure free access to the contraceptives. The government will reimburse the cost.
The Courts order stressed that it did not mean that the Justices were ruling on the correctness of the Third Circuit decision. That will be the issue if the Court grants review in the pending case of Zubik v. Burwell (docket 14-1418).
Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that she would simply have denied the groups plea for any kind of order affecting the Third Circuit ruling.
Wait til euthanasia coverage becomes mandatory under Obamacare.
Freedom is dying of a terminal disease.
SCOTUS ordered Target to stay open all night.
SCOTUS.
I was under the impression that only the Congress could initiate spending. Apparently it's really the House or the Court (if they feel like it). I miss the rule of law.
If the government can provide it for free why make these religious bodies go through this charade?
Why do we need this. It is all going to homosexual marriage with out the possibility of children, anyway.
They have access. They mean subsidies. They want to force those against it to fund it. There is no right on conscience any longer. Your conscience is not allowed to deviate from the black robed ruler’s. Well, pretty much it cannot deviate from Injustice Kennedy’s.
Trampling on rights, the Constitution, Rule of Law, and reason - it’s the Communist way. Always and everywhere.
“Scotus and El Presidente have just about made congress irrelevant”
The Congress didn’t exactly go down fighting.
Agree. Why do you think congress doesn't fight?
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As has been said many times here, THEY HAVE ACCESS. What they want is someone else to pay for it.
What ever happened to “keep the gubermint out of the bedroom????”
This is why the GOP needs to make the pill available OTC. End this nonsense once and for all. That move will make the pill widely available, cheap, likely knock it off of insurable purchases placing it wholly in private hands, and kill a major income source for the Democratic sex organization commonly known as Planned Parenthood.
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