Appeals court rules against Liberty University in HHS mandate case

July 16, 2013

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled against Liberty University’s challenges to healthcare legislation enacted by Congress in 2010 and to the ensuing HHS mandate.

The Catholic Medical Association filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Liberty University, while the Catholic Health Association filed a brief on behalf of the federal government.

The evangelical Protestant university argued that the legislation’s mandate to large employers to provide health insurance was unconstitutional. The court ruled that “we find that the employer mandate is no monster; rather, it is simply another example of Congress’s longstanding authority to regulate employee compensation offered and paid for by employers in interstate commerce.”

Liberty University also argued that its religious beliefs forbid it from “play[ing] [any] part in abortions, including [any] part in facilitating, subsidizing, easing, funding, or supporting abortions since to do so is evil and morally repugnant complicity.” The court ruled that “plaintiffs present no plausible claim that the Act substantially burdens their free exercise of religion, by forcing them to facilitate or support abortion or otherwise. The Act specifically provides individuals the option to purchase a plan that covers no abortion services except those for cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the mother would be endangered.”

In a footnote, the court, citing federal law, stated that drugs and devices that kill a newly-conceived human being between the moment of fertilization and implantation in the mother’s womb are not abortifacients:

In their new briefs, Plaintiffs seek to challenge as abortifacients forms of FDA-approved contraception that may act after fertilization, including emergency contraceptive pills and intra-uterine devices. But the Government does not define such contraceptives as abortifacients or abortion. Well-established federal law defines “pregnancy” to “encompass the period of time from implantation until delivery.” The forms of contraception that Plaintiffs now challenge, as they themselves recognize, do not act after implantation, so they do not terminate a “pregnancy” as defined in this regulation.

The university vowed to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

 

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Further information:

• Court rejects Obamacare challenge by Christian college (Reuters)
• 4th Circuit Rejects Religion-Based Challenges To Affordable Care Act Provisions and Upholds Employer Mandate (Religion Clause)
• Liberty U. Will Petition Supreme Court to Hear 'Obamacare' Employer Mandate Suit (Christian Post)
• Full text of decision