Two Christian universities in Indiana and a Christian education group representing more than a hundred Christian colleges are suing the Obama administration for forcing them to cover abortion drugs in their healthcare plans.
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed the suit on behalf of Taylor University and Indiana Wesleyan; the Association of Christian Schools International, whose college members include Asuza Pacific University and Biola in California and Liberty University in Virginia; and Samaritan Ministries International, which says it provides “a Biblical, non-insurance approach to health care needs.”
The alliance said in a press release:
The recent rule changes issued by the administration for the abortion-pill mandate do not address the religious objections to coerced participation in providing life-ending drugs, devices, and counseling. …
“The government should not force religious organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “The best way to respect everyone’s freedom would have been to extend the existing religious exemption to religious non-profits in addition to churches.”
The suit explains:
It can be conceded for argument’s sake that all these requirements advance to some degree the government’s broad interests in public health and equality. But it cannot be plausibly maintained that the fate of the entire enterprise rests in any measurable way on forcing these four Plaintiffs to facilitate access to four drugs and devices—which represent one-fifth of one of the 143 required items—particularly when they are willing to facilitate access to other drugs, devices, and procedures that prevent pregnancy. Moreover, the explicit rationale behind the contraceptive mandate (“Mandate”) was not nebulous aspirations like “public health” and “equality,” but something far more concrete and measurable—the reduction in the adverse health effects associated with the pregnancies that are unintended. The available evidence overwhelmingly shows that contraceptive mandates simply do not reduce unintended pregnancy rates.
Read the alliance press release.
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
IMAGE: Public domain
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.