Nuns sue New York over abortion coverage mandate

(The Center Square) — A group of New York nuns are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to block New York regulation requiring faith-based organizations to cover abortions in their employee health insurance plans.

In a filing Tuesday, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York joined a coalition of Anglican and Catholic nuns, churches and faith-based social ministries in petitioning justices to take up a case challenging a New York State Department of Financial Services' policy that they argue violates their religious beliefs and constitutional rights. The 2017 rule prohibits insurers from excluding coverage for medically necessary abortions.

“New York’s abortion mandate is so extreme that not even Jesus, Mother Teresa, or Mahatma Gandhi would qualify for an exemption,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit legal group that has signed onto the legal challenge. "The Justices should exempt religious organizations once and for all so they can focus on caring for the most vulnerable."

The nuns initially filed a lawsuit in 2017 challenging the law, claiming that New York initially promised to exempt employers with religious exemptions from the abortion mandate but narrowed the exemption to cover only religious groups that both primarily teach religion.

That meant that many faith-based organizations, like the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, would still be forced to cover abortion care regardless of their religious views.

New York courts rejected the legal challenge, but the religious groups asked the Supreme Court to take their case. In 2021, the Supreme Court reversed unfavorable rulings from New York courts and told them to reconsider the case in response to a landmark victory in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which held the city discriminated against a Catholic group for refusing to work with the organization over its opposition to same-sex couples.

In May, the New York Court of Appeals found that the rule did not violate religious employers' freedom because both the rule and its religious exemption were neutral and generally applicable to all employers.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the New York courts are ignoring the high court's directive stemming from the Fulton decision and are now asking the justices to overturn the regulations.

"Religious groups in New York should not be required to provide insurance coverage that violates their deeply held religious beliefs," attorney Noel J. Francisco said in a statement. "We are asking the Court to protect religious freedom and make clear that the mandate cannot be applied to this diverse group of religious organizations."

A spokesperson for the state Financial Services Department, named the primary defendant in the legal challenge, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the petition to the high court, the plaintiffs told justices the case is an opportunity to "protect religious liberty" but also "resolve a persistent split about when laws burdening religious exercise trigger strict scrutiny." They argue that allowing certain religious conduct "for preferred subsets of religious groups" but forbidding others "is a particularly pernicious form of discrimination under the First Amendment."

"No one would reasonably say a law is generally applicable if it exempts a religious nursing home that serves only Lutherans, but not one that serves indigent elderly of all faiths," they wrote. "But that is precisely the position adopted by the New York courts."

If justices agree to take up the legal fight, it would be heard in the court’s new term, which begins next month.