Supreme Court mulls contraceptives coverage

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is observing social distancing these days, but that won't stop it from prying into the nation's bedrooms. Again.

Federal courts have been doing just that for nearly a decade in an effort to determine whether the federal government can require cost-free insurance coverage for contraceptives. Wednesday, the clash between religious liberty and reproductive rights returns to the high court for the third time.

After passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the Obama administration mandated that most employers provide such coverage, exempting small businesses as well as churches and other houses of worship. Religious charities, hospitals and universities were allowed to have the coverage provided directly by their insurers. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that privately held corporations with religious objections, such as Hobby Lobby, deserved the same escape route.

In 2016, a shorthanded court with only eight justices failed to decide whether the religious nonprofit groups could wash their hands completely of the contraceptives coverage, rather than pass it on to their insurers. Instead, the court sent seven cases back to federal appeals courts in search of an elusive compromise.

The dispute is back with several twists: The Trump administration sides with the religious objectors, led by Little Sisters of the Poor, against the position taken by the Obama administration. It has sought to exempt groups with religious or moral objections but has been blocked by federal courts. The Supreme Court, previously deadlocked, now has a solidly conservative majority.

The justices' willingness to hear a dispute the high court has considered twice before probably bodes well for the Obamacare provision's challengers. In recent years, the court has favored religious liberty: making churches eligible for some public funds, upholding public prayer at government meetings, allowing a mammoth Latin cross to remain on government land and more.

This term, the justices are considering several other challenges brought by religious object ors, including cases concerning public aid for religious education and exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

Pandemic forces changes

It's ironic that the case returns to the Supreme Court when an international pandemic has forced the nation into a virtual lockdown and the justices themselves into remote locations, from which they conducted oral arguments by telephone Monday.

“People need more access to health care, not less,” says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who filed the latest challenge to the Trump administration's contraceptives rule. New Jersey has since joined the case.

Although his lawsuit resulted in federal court injunctions blocking new exemptions from the contraception coverage mandate, Shapiro recognizes that “the Supreme Court is a different game.” The addition of Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh since 2017 firmed up the conservative majority, particularly on the First Amendment's religion clauses.