White House backs off contraceptive mandate, potential win for Little Sisters of the Poor

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 27, 2024 / 10:00 am

The Little Sisters of the Poor welcomed a Christmas blessing earlier this week that could help them end their near-14-year religious liberty battle with the U.S. government. 

On Monday afternoon, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a notice in the Federal Register stating that it has opted to withdraw rule changes to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate. 

Proposed by the Biden administration last year, the rule changes would have barred the nuns and other religious organizations from claiming exemptions to the ACA requirement that employers provide abortion and contraception coverage in their employee health plans.

HHS stated that it decided to withdraw the Biden administration’s proposed rules so the government could “focus their time and resources on matters other than finalizing these rules.” The health agency further cited extensive comments it received on the proposed changes as reasons to pump the brakes on imposing the alterations. 

The notice adds that “should the departments decide in the future that it is a priority to move forward with a rulemaking in this area,” it wants “to ensure that they will have the benefit of the most up-to-date facts and information on these important issues” while respecting religious objections to contraception.

The religious liberty law group Becket celebrated the win this week. “Christmas came a little early this year,” the organization, which has represented the nuns in court, declared in a social media post on Monday.

Becket pointed to a Wall Street Journal column by Catholic writer William McGurn, who wrote on Dec. 23 that the nuns were hoping for “an end to the lawfare against them.”

McGurn described religious liberty as both a historical “pillar of American liberalism” and “the heart of any liberal order and the key to civic peace.”

The sisters’ more than decade-long court battle dates back to 2011, when the Barack Obama administration required employers to provide cost-free coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and “emergency birth control” in employee health plans under the ACA.

Although the sisters have celebrated two Supreme Court successes, in 2016 and 2020, they are still fighting for their religious liberty in district courts in California and Pennsylvania, which have continued to pursue legal action to rescind the religious exemptions granted to the sisters by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“With the help of Becket, [the sisters] defeated the federal government at [the U.S. Supreme Court] not once but twice and are still in court defending their ministry against a group of states led by California and Pennsylvania,” Becket continued on X.

“Those court battles have been on ice for years due to the new contraceptive mandate rule that the Biden administration kept promising to issue.”

In light of the latest development, Becket further called attention to the possibility that the sisters could potentially see a “final victory.”

“California and Pennsylvania have no business suing the Little Sisters when presidential administrations of both parties have given religious exemptions to the sisters,” the religious liberty firm added.

“One final thought: Suing nuns is never a good idea,” the group concluded.