By Gregory M. Lipper Today the Supreme Court granted review in seven challenges to the accommodation offered to those with religious objections to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage regulations. I won’t rehash my earlier posts about why I (and seven of eight federal appeals courts) think that these challenges, brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration…
Obamacare, the Contraceptive Mandate, and Religious Freedom Discussion Thursday, October 15, 2015 12:00 – 1:00 PM Wasserstein Hall, Room 2012 Harvard Law School, Cambridge MA [Map] The Harvard Federalist Society will be hosting Mark Rienzi next Thursday, October 15 to discuss the current contraceptive mandate and accommodation lawsuits. Petrie-Flom Center Executive Director Holly F. Lynch will…
By Gregory M. Lipper Thomas Jefferson famously said that “[i]t does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Note what Jefferson did not say: “my neighbor is entitled to pick my pocket and break my leg, so long…
By Gregory M. Lipper On Thursday, the Eighth Circuit all but assured that major parts of the Affordable Care Act will return to the Supreme Court’s chopping block. This time the issue is whether an accommodation—enabling religious objectors to opt out of offering contraceptive coverage to their employees—itself violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)….
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 This is the third and (I promise) final installment in my skirmish with Josh Blackman over a brief that he and Cato Institute filed in support of Little Sisters of the Poor’s quixotic challenge to regulations requiring them to fill out a form to obtain an exemption from providing contraceptive coverage to…
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,…
Our blogger Michele Goodwin has a piece up on Politico: Republicans on Capitol Hill, and now GOP presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, are jumping over each other to defund Planned Parenthood because it transfers fetal tissues to researchers at cost. But if Americans want the benefits of biotechnology—helpful surgeries, cosmetics, vaccines, Alzheimer’s…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch Today, the 10th Circuit issued its opinion in the Little Sisters of the Poor case, holding that the accommodation offered to religious nonprofits – and now also to certain closely-held for-profits – is legally acceptable under the standard imposed by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The accommodation, just recently finalized…
