Supreme Court Sets Date for Little Sisters of the Poor’s Challenge to Obama HHS Mandate

lifenews.com ^ | Steven Ertelt

[Morgana]

The Supreme Court has set the date for oral arguments for Little Sisters of the Poor’s challenge to the Obama HHS mandate. The nation’s highest court will hear debate from attorneys representing the Catholic religious order and the Obama administration on Wednesday, March 23 at 10 a.m.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are asking the nation’s highest court to ensure they do not have to comply with Obamacare’s abortion mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.

Without relief, the Little Sisters would face millions of dollars in IRS fines because they cannot comply with the government’s mandate that they give their employees free access to contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.

Previously, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily protected the Little Sisters from the mandate. The Little Sisters then went before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to extend that protection, but a panel of the appeals court ruled against them. Eventually the full appeals court ruled in its favor but the Obama administration appealed.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns who care for the elderly poor, urged the Supreme Court to protect them from $70 million dollars in government fines for refusing to violate their Catholic faith. This is the second time the Sisters have been forced to ask the Supreme Court for protection from the government’s efforts to make them to provide contraceptives to their employees. The Supreme Court gave the Sisters preliminary protection in January 2014, and it will hear their case in March of this year.

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“The Little Sisters spend their lives taking care of the neediest members of our society —that is work our government should applaud, not punish,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “The Little Sisters should not have to fight their own government to get an exemption it has already given to thousands of other employers, including big companies like Exxon and Pepsi Cola Bottling Company.”

Their Supreme Court brief

explains why the government does not need the Little Sisters at all: because it already has many other ways to get contraceptive coverage to those who want it. “Indeed, the government has invested billions of dollars in creating exchanges for the express purpose of making it easy to obtain qualifying insurance when it is not available through an employer. The government cannot explain why those exchanges suffice to advance its goal of getting contraceptive coverage to the tens of millions of [other] people . . . yet are not good enough” for the employees of the Little Sisters.

“As Little Sisters of the Poor, we offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they are welcomed as Christ.  We perform this loving ministry because of our faith and cannot possibly choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith, and we shouldn’t have to,” said Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire, Mother Provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor. “All we ask is that our rights not be taken away.  The government exempts large corporations, small businesses, and other religious ministries from what they are imposing on us – we just want to keep serving the elderly poor as we have always done for 175 years. We look forward to the Supreme Court hearing our case, and pray for God’s protection of our ministry.”

“It is ridiculous for the federal government to claim, in this day and age, that it can’t figure out how to distribute contraceptives without involving nuns and their health plans.” said Senior Counsel Mark Rienzi.

Previously, the Supreme Court ruled that the Christian-run Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to obey the HHS mandate that is a part of Obamacare that requires businesses to pay for abortion causing drugs in their employee health care plans.

A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.

“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.

The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.

Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”

Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.

[MtnClimber]

Gay rights is just a proxy war against Christianity.

[MHGinTN]

Pity the Poor Sisters, Roberts is still soiling the bench.

[Organic Panic]

I hope they have those millions in the bank. They’re going to lose in the Obamanation. NOTHING is allowed to stand between government and power. Especially God.

[BuckeyeTexan]

FReepmail me to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.

[Amendment10]

Thank you for referencing that article Morgana. As usual, please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

With all due respect to mom & pop, if parents were making sure that their children were being taught the federal governments constitutionally limited powers then high school students would probably be able to point out the following excerpts from Supreme Court case opinions to argue against Obamacare. These excerpts clearly indicate that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for INTRAstate healthcare purposes.

Regarding the Obamacare insurance mandate for example, note the fourth entry in the list below from Paul v. Virginia. In that case state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that regulating insurance is not within the scope of Congresss Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3), regardless if the parties negotiating the insurance policy are domiciled in different states.

• ”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” - Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• ”Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” - Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• ”Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” -Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.

• ” 4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract [emphasis added] of indemnity against loss.” - Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate insurance.)

• ”Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress.” - Linder v. United States, 1925.

Remember in November!

When patriots elect Trump, Cruz, or whatever conservative they elect, they will also need to elect a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will be willing to not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support the president, but also be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring, activist justices.

[stocksthatgoup]

Rape and pillage to follow.

[moehoward]

I thought the Court said they weren’t hearing any more obamacare cases??

[jmacusa]

President Punk Ass takes on ‘’The Little Sisters Of The Poor’. What an asshole.

[xzins]

We always used “Little Sisters of the Poor” as the opponent in the unbelievable story of someone overcoming an unbelievably unsuitable opponent. (Example “That would be like the Carolina Panthers playing the Little sisters of the poor.”)

And now here is the Fed ACTUALLY beating up on the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Where is Bing Crosby when you need him?

[xzins]

We always used “Little Sisters of the Poor” as the opponent in the unbelievable story of someone overcoming an unbelievably unsuitable opponent. (Example “That would be like the Carolina Panthers playing the Little sisters of the poor.”)

And now here is the Fed ACTUALLY beating up on the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Where is Bing Crosby when you need him?

[Clintonfatigued]

You can tell a lot about a man by who he targets as enemies. Instead of attacking terrorists and gangsters, Obama attacks piano teachers and nuns.

[GOPsterinMA]

It doesn’t matter. You’re annoyed with Donald Trump...

[Clintonfatigued]

I still plan to vote for him.

[GOPsterinMA]

Well, you’re all that and a bag of chips!

[GOPsterinMA]

A vote for anyone but Trump is akin to licking public toilet seats.

TRMP OR BUST!!!!!!!!!!

[DoughtyOne]

Please help make FR's voice louder.

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