The Supreme Court will have two more opportunities to rule on religious freedom and contraception next term, one case concerning pharmacists and prescription rules, the other an order of nuns and Obamacare.
A Washington state rule requiring pharmacies to fill all valid prescriptions, regardless of whether the owners may have religious objections to doing so, was upheld Thursday by a panel of federal appellate judges.
The decision is a setback for two Christian pharmacists and a Christian family-owned pharmacy in Olympia, Washington. They have been resisting the state’s mandate that they dispense products, such as Plan B and ella, which they characterize as abortifacients.
Attorneys for the Washington state pharmacy plaintiffs said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.
Top medical and pharmaceutical associations “support the right of a provider to refer patients, and all other states allow such referrals,” said Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of legal services at Alliance Defending Freedom.
Letting this Washington rule stand “will affect many facilities within the state, including Catholic hospitals and pharmacies, which have made clear they will not dispense these drugs,” Ms. Waggoner said.
Alliance Defending Freedom and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty are among the legal counsel for the Stormans family, which runs Ralph’s Thriftway in Olympia, Washington, and Washington pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday against the Christian plaintiffs.
“We recognize that there is a ’trend of protecting conscientious objectors to abortions’ and that most — but not all — states do not require pharmacies to deliver prescriptions, such as Plan B and ella, in a timely manner,” Judge Susan P. Graber wrote in an opinion joined by Judges Richard R. Clifton and Mary H. Murguia.
“On balance, however, we are unconvinced” that plaintiffs’ requests to run a business while sidestepping state rules on access to drugs “is ’so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,’” Judge Graber wrote. “Accordingly, we decline to recognize a new fundamental right.”
In the other major development of a religious liberty case Thursday, lawyers with the Becket Fund said they have filed a request for review with the Supreme Court on behalf of an order of Catholic nuns who run nearly 200 nursing homes around the world.
The Denver-based Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged object to a requirement in the federal Affordable Care Act that they provide birth control coverage in their employee insurance.
“The government has lost every single time they have made these arguments before the Supreme Court — including last year’s landmark Hobby Lobby case. One would think they would get the message and stop pressuring the Sisters,” said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the Little Sisters.
The Little Sisters of the Poor is the latest in a string of nonprofit groups that have asked the justices to hear them out next term. They say the Obama administration hasn’t done enough to absolve them from providing birth control that their churches teach is sinful, including morning-after pills that the Catholic Church and some Protestant groups equate to abortion.
They haven’t persuaded top federal judges, though.
When the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned away the Little Sisters on July 14, it became the fifth appellate court to reject religious nonprofits’ challenge to the Obama administration’s policy.
The nonprofits say they will find more sympathetic ears at the Supreme Court, which last year insulated Hobby Lobby and similar family-run corporations from the Obamacare-related mandate requiring employers to cover 20 types of federally approved drugs and services as part of their health care plans. The Health and Human Services Department drafted an accommodation for these businesses, finalized this month, that extends the same type of opt-out clause that HHS offered nonprofits.
Religious nonprofits say connecting their employees with birth control coverage still makes them complicit, so they are seeking the type of blanket exemption from the mandate that churches, synagogues and other houses of worship enjoy.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.