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Family-Run Business Files With Supreme Court: Stop ‘Unjust’ ObamaCare HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

A family-run business filed papers with the Supreme Court today telling the high court that it must stop the “unjust” Obamcare mandate that requires companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

This is the companion case to the legal challenge the Supreme Court accepted from Hobby Lobby.

Alliance Defending Freedom and allied attorneys representing a Pennsylvania Mennonite family and its woodworking business filed their opening brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Friday in one of two major legal challenges to the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate that the high court agreed in November to hear.

“Unjust laws are not valid laws. The government shouldn’t be allowed to punish Americans for exercising their constitutionally protected freedoms,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The administration has no business whatsoever forcing citizens to choose between making a living and living free.”

“Job creators don’t give up their fundamental freedoms when they get a business license,” added Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Every American has a right to fully and freely participate in every area of public life.”

Read more from this story HERE.

ObamaCare Birth Control Mandate Delayed

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Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty

Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty

Justice Sonia Sotomayor blocked a birth control mandate in ObamaCare that would have forced some religion-affiliated organizations to provide employee health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage.

Sotomayor acted on a request from an organization of Catholic nuns in Denver that requested an emergency stay, according to the Associated Press.

Read more from this story HERE.

Expert’s Predictions About ObamaCare Coming True; Another Says ‘Utter Chaos’ To Follow

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Photo Credit: Kansas Policy Institute

Photo Credit: Kansas Policy Institute

“HHS maintains they’ll have these [Exchanges] up and running by October 2013. I don’t know anyone who is confident about that and I’m ready to predict that they will not.” — Michael F. Cannon, December 2012

“In my opinion, what’s going to happen is utter chaos.” — Cato Institute senior fellow Jagadeesh Gokhale, February 2013

“With no clarity as to when people should sign up and who they should pay and when, it’s a virtual certainty that many consumers will find themselves uncovered for a period of time through no fault of their own.” — Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), December 2013

My December 2012 prediction that ObamaCare’s health insurance “exchanges” would not be ready on time proved true by July 2013, when President Obama unilaterally delayed the law’s employer mandate for a year. It proved painfully, obviously true when the Exchanges crashed upon takeoff on October 1, just as ObamaCare was throwing millions out of their current health plans.

My colleague Jagadeesh Gokhale‘s February 2013 prediction of “utter chaos” (audio here, at 48: 25) arguably proved true in October, and is now evident in President Obama’s decision to exempt from the individual mandate those millions whose plans Obama himself cancelled.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Loses In Court – “Doesn’t Have the Right” to Impose HHS Mandate on Christian Colleges

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

The Obama administration has lost yet another court case against the controversial HHS mandate that forces companies, colleges, and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions under their employee health plans.

Today a Houston federal court delivered a major blow to the controversial HHS mandate ruling in favor of East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University. In a 46-page opinion, the court ruled that the federal mandate requiring employers to provide employees with abortion-causing drugs and devices violates federal civil rights laws, and issued an injunction against the mandate. Religious plaintiffs have now won injunctions in 9 out of 12 such cases involving non-profit entities challenging the mandate.

“The government doesn’t have the right to decide what religious beliefs are legitimate and which ones aren’t,” said Eric Rassbach, Deputy General Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and lead attorney for East Texas Baptist and Houston Baptist Universities. “In its careful opinion, the Court recognized that the government was trying to move across that forbidden line, and said “No further!”

n its opinion, the federal court specifically rejected the government’s argument that it evaluate the Universities’ beliefs: “The religious organization plaintiffs have shown a sincerely held religious belief that the court cannot second-guess.”

The decision is part of a recent groundswell of cases decided against the government. In nine of the twelve cases decided thus far, federal district courts across the country have issued injunctions against the mandate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Polls Show Increasing Majority of Americans Oppose HHS Abortion Mandate

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Photo Credit: APAs Obama administration supporters struggle to cast religious opponents of Obamacare’s HHS Mandate as waging a war on women ahead of the Supreme Court deciding that controversy next year, polls show Americans support the rights of conscience for business owners who do not want to be complicit in abortion due to their religious faith.

With the Obama White House’s approval, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a regulation interpreting the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employer policies cover “preventive care” to include birth control and abortion-related services. Religious organizations and business owners object to this regulation as a violation of their rights of faith-based conscience, and the Supreme Court will decide the issue early next year in two cases consolidated under the name Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores.


Two new polls reveal growing opposition to the mandate. First is a WPA poll of 801 likely voters commissioned by the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, showing that 59 percent of likely voters oppose the mandate, while only 35 percent support the mandate. Second is a Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters, showing 51 percent opposition to the mandate with 38 percent supporting.

The higher number showcasing the unpopularity of this Obamacare regulation in the first poll could be revealing. The wording of the Rasmussen question (the second poll) is: “Should businesses 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?”

The wording in the Wilson Research (WPA) poll asks essentially the same question, but adds the information that insurance plans must “includ[e] drugs that can destroy a human embryo.” This is because some drugs required by the mandate prevent a human embryo from implanting in the uterus up to 10 days after an egg is fertilized, thereby resulting in its death.

Read more from this story HERE.

Notre Dame Sues Obama: We Won’t Obey the HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: LifeNews The University of Notre Dame is back in court taking on the Obama administration and its pro-abortion HHS mandate that forces religious companies, organizations, and schools to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

Earlier this year, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit Notre Dame filed against the HHS mandate. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. dismissed the suit, claiming that Notre Dame is sufficiently protected by a very narrowly-drawn religious exemption in the mandate — that pro-life legal groups say does not apply to every religious entity.

Notre Dame, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and dozens of Catholic hospitals and organizations have filed multiple lawsuits against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama administration over the controversial HHS mandate.

The lawsuit challenges the Obama administration’s unprecedented mandate that attacks the freedom to practice religion without government interference. Under the HHS mandate, employers must provide insurance coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs, as well as contraceptives and sterilization procedures.

“Our abiding concern in both the original filing of May 21, 2012, and this re-filing has been Notre Dame’s freedom — and indeed the freedom of many religious organizations in this country — to live out a religious mission,” Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president, said. “We have sought neither to prevent women from having access to services, nor even to prevent the government from providing them.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Rules Pittsburgh Catholic Church Doesn’t Have to Comply With HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: Life News In yet another pro-life victory against the HHS mandate that forces churches and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, a federal judge has ruled that the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh doesn’t have to comply.

Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh made such a stink when he testified in court recently that he received national attention. He said would rather pay fines, no matter how much they might be that be forced to follow the directives of the abortion mandate.

“I would not be able to live with myself knowing that we’re contradicting what we believe,” he said during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab.

Under the law’s penalties, Catholic Charities would be subject to a daily fine of $100 per employee if Zubik doesn’t sign, said Susan Rauscher, the nonprofit’s executive director. That would total $2 million to $4 million a year for an organization with a $10 million operating budget, she said. As a result, the Pittsburgh and Erie diocese are suing the government, claiming that the requirement violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They’re asking Schwab to temporarily block enforcement of the mandate on their nonprofits while the dioceses pursue the lawsuits.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Surrenders in ObamaCare Battle

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Bob Unruh. The Obama administration has surrendered in a key fight with a Christian publisher over the abortion pill mandate in Obamacare, asking a federal court to dismiss an appeal of a ruling that prevented application of the mandate.

The move was confirmed today by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Tyndale House Publishers.

Tyndale, of Carol Stream, Ill., went to court because it objects to providing abortifacients, as Obamacare requires of every health coverage plan.

Tyndale, the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of books, Bibles and digital media, won in a lower court, which ordered that the abortifacient requirement not be applied to the publishing company.

The Obama administration appealed the ruling, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has dismissed the appeal at the request of the famously pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Gives Up Forcing Bible Publisher to Obey HHS Mandate

By Steven Ertelt. In a huge victory for pro-life advocates taking on the controversial HHS mandate, the Obama administration is giving up its effort to force a Bible publisher to obey it.

The mandate has generated massive opposition from pro-life groups because it forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The Obama administration opposed an order a judge gave temporarily stopping enforcement, arguing that Tyndale House Publishers isn’t religious enough for an exemption from the mandate, a component of ObamaCare that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

Now, at the Obama administration’s request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped President Barack Obama from enforcing his abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers say the administration is apparently nervous about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption to the mandate. Read more from this story HERE.

Judge: Catholic Company Doesn’t Have to Follow Obama HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

A federal judge in Minnesota has given a Catholic-owned and operated business a reprieve from the onerous provisions of the Obamacare HHS mandate. The mandate compels companies to pay for birth control and drugs for their employees that may cause abortions.

U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim issued a ruling yesterday for an injunction against complying with the mandate for American Manufacturing Company. The attorney for the client, Thomas Mathews, told a news outlet, “He was conflicted with owning a company that would provide the types of insurance that he finds morally offensive and objectionable.”

More from the report:

In working with its current insurance company, Medica, American Manufacturing was able to cut the birth control coverage from an existing group health insurance plan…

Read more from this story HERE.

New HHS Mandate Rules Force Hobby Lobby, Any Religious Biz to Comply

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsThe Obama administration released new HHS mandate rules today that attempt to expand the number of religious groups that can opt out of the pro-abortion mandate — but that leaves religiously-run companies like Hobby Lobby out in the cold. Pro-life advocates oppose the mandate because it forces religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.

Thanks to a number of decisions in court related to lawsuits filed against the mandate by dozens of religious businesses and organizations, the Obama administration is under court order to revise the mandate. But the proposed changes don’t protect everyone who wants to opt out.

Although the proposed revisions provide some additional protections for religiously-affiliated organizations, companies owned and operated by people with religious objections to the mandate are not included in the expanded exemption rules.

“Today, the administration is taking the next step in providing women across the nation with coverage of recommended preventive care at no cost, while respecting religious concerns,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “We will continue to work with faith-based organizations, women’s organizations, insurers and others to achieve these goals.”

But the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a pro-life legal group representing Hobby Lobby, told LifeNews the proposed changes would still force the company to comply with the mandate.

“Today’s proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious liberty of millions of Americans. The rights of family businesses like Hobby Lobby are still being violated,” Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for The Becket Fund For Religious Liberty, said.

Read more from this story HERE.