Appeals Court Eviscerates Notre Dame’s Objections to Contraception Accommodation

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/appeals-court-eviscerates-notre-dames-objections-to-contraception-accommodation/

BY PATRICIA MILLER MAY 20, 2015

The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has again rejected Notre Dame’s complaint that the accommodation to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate is a “substantial burden” on its religious liberty and denied its request for an injuction.

The Seventh Circuit had made the same ruling previously, but was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling in light of the Hobby Lobby decision.

In his opinion, Judge Richard Posner rebuffed Notre Dame’s theological objections to the accommodation and said its legal maneuverings showed its real objective was to prevent women from accessing contraception through their insurance period:

We now have (we think) a clearer idea of what the university wants. It wants us to enjoin the government from forbidding Notre Dame to bar Aetna and Meritain from providing contraceptive coverage to any of the university’s students or employees. Because of its contractual relations with the two companies…Notre Dame claims to be complicit in the sin of contraception. It wants to dissolve that complicity by forbidding Aetna and Meritain—with both of which, to repeat, it continues to have contractual relations—to provide any contraceptive coverage to Notre Dame students or staff. The result would be that the students and staff currently lacking coverage other than from Aetna or Meritain would have to fend for themselves, seeking contraceptive coverage elsewhere in the health insurance market.

He then proceeded to demolish Notre Dame’s claim that simply providing notification of its intent to claim the accommodation would in fact make it a “conduit” to the provision of contraceptives, which is the lay reading of Notre Dame’s insistence that it can’t participate in any degree of moral cooperation with contraception:

The scanty record contains no evidence to support the conduit theory. Although Notre Dame is the final arbiter of its religious beliefs, it is for the courts to determine whether the law actually forces Notre Dame to act in a way that would violate those beliefs. As far as we can determine from the very limited record, the only ‘conduit’ is between the companies and Notre Dame students and staff; the university has stepped aside. … there is no suggestion that Notre Dame is involved at all in Aetna’s and Meritain’s contraception coverage.

more at link

[Hoppy]

1. I hope somebody makes asbestos judicial robes.

Those judges are gonna need 'em after Jesus gets ahold of their sorry asses.

[Yorktown]

4. Good precaution, but isn't asbestos carcinogenic?

Poor SCOTUS.

A choice between Jesus fire or cells fire.

[cbayer]

5. Actually, it's the Notre Dame tame that's going to the ned asbestos...

the judges did great.

[Gothmog]

2. It looks a good opinion by Posner

[nil desperandum]

3. Excellent Point

now if we can only get the SCOTUS to reverse the horrendous miscalculation on Hobby Lobby insurance coverage would get much simpler for employers and employees.

[cbayer]

6. Hobby Lobby reversal is critical, but unlikely unless we gain

control of the court.

[nil desperandum]

7. Agreed

The next POTUS will have an effect on the SCOTUS. Winning the 2016 POTUS election is a critical element.

We might not agree on a lot of things, but on that count we are on the same side to be sure.

[cbayer]

8. We probably agree on more than we don't agree on, but the areas were we disagree

are not innocuous, lol.

[nil desperandum]

9. True enough