By Matthew Ryan I love the Little Sisters of the Poor. As an undergraduate student, I fulfilled my public health program’s service requirements by volunteering at their nursing home in St. Louis. Each week, I would drive from my pristine, Jesuit college campus to the neglected part of the city. The sisters’ home was on…
By Gregory M. Lipper The Wall Street Journal published a story earlier this week about an increase in the number of Americans enrolling in healthcare sharing ministries: faith-based alternatives to standard health insurance. According to the Journal, the number of participants in these ministries has grown from under 200,000, before the Affordable Care Act was…
By Gregory M. Lipper That’s how Tara Murtha describes the lawsuit brought by Real Alternatives and its three (male) employees seeking to enjoin application of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive-coverage regulations. This lawsuit is different than the ones currently before the Supreme Court: Real Alternatives is not a religious organization, and its employees argue that…
By Norman L. Cantor I am obsessed with avoiding severe dementia. As a person who has always valued intellectual function, the prospect of lingering in a dysfunctional cognitive state is distasteful — an intolerable indignity. For me, such mental debilitation soils the remembrances to be left with my survivors and undermines the life narrative as…
By Elizabeth Sepper Should healthcare providers, researchers, and insurers be able to engage in sex discrimination for religious reasons? HHS asked the public to weigh in on this question with regard to the ACA’s nondiscrimination provision. The answer is no for three important reasons. First, the statute doesn’t allow additional exemptions. Not only is the…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch Perhaps foreshadowed by the dissent in the 10th Circuit that I wrote about here, the 8th Circuit has now officially launched a circuit split regarding the legal validity of the accommodation that allows modified compliance/objection to the contraceptives coverage mandate. Unlike the seven other circuits to have considered the question since Hobby…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch On September 3, the 10th Circuit declined to rehear en banc several challenges to the contraceptives coverage mandate filed by non-profit organizations, including Little Sisters of the Poor. As SCOTUSBlog explains, these organizations had not themselves asked for en banc review, having already moved on to SCOTUS, but the judges have…
By Gregory M. Lipper Josh Blackman has replied to my post criticizing the Cato Institute’s amicus brief (which Josh coauthored) in support of the cert petition in the Little Sisters contraception case. My original post made two arguments: (1) if you take away the nonprofit accommodation, Hobby Lobby no longer supplies a rule of decision,…
By Maayan Sudai Mohammad Allan was an administrative detainee in Israel, a Palestinian who had been hunger striking since June 16 to protest his indefinite incarceration. Allan’s health has been deteriorating gradually, and the latest examinations raised concerns that he suffered irreversible brain damage. The crisis in Allan’s health created a tangle for the Israeli government, since releasing…
By Michelle Meyer I’ve started writing for Forbes as a regular contributor. My first piece, Carly Fiorina Says Her Views On Vaccines Are Unremarkable; For Better Or Worse, She’s Right, analyzes GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina’s recent ad hoc remarks on the relative rights of parents and schools with respect to vaccinations and to some…
