Coalition of faith groups side with nuns in religious freedom case before Supreme Court

By Madalaine Elhabbal

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 23, 2024 / 15:45 pm

A group of nuns and religious associations fighting for exemption from a New York law mandating they provide abortion coverage to their employees has gained support from a coalition of Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Catholic, and other Christian groups as they take their legal battle to the Supreme Court.

In Diocese of Albany v. Harris, the plaintiffs are suing the state of New York after it mandated employers to cover abortions in their employee health insurance plans. The nuns have been engaged in the litigation since first filing suit in 2017. Their case is one of several religious freedom cases that could be on the Supreme Court docket this term.

Twenty states including Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio have thrown their weight behind the case, alongside the University of Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Clinic and various Catholic health care professionals and organizations. Together with the various religious groups, they collectively filed seven friend-of-the-court briefs asking the Supreme Court to block the mandate.

“New York is bullying nuns into bankrolling abortions because they serve all people, no matter their faith,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the religious liberty law firm Becket, in a press release. “That is unacceptable — as this outpouring of support shows, religious organizations should be free to care for the needy without having to violate their beliefs.”

The plaintiffs, including the Sisters of St. Mary, a contemplative order of goat-herding Anglican nuns, asked the state in the filing for protection against the regulation, but the New York court refused.

Following the initial decision, the religious groups appealed to the Supreme Court, which returned it to the state court in May. In their filing, they asked the court to reconsider the case in light of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a religious liberty case that upheld the religious liberty of private Catholic adoption agencies.

However, the lower court once again denied the plaintiffs’ appeals, upholding the abortion mandate, leading Becket to appeal to the Supreme Court for a second time this past September.

The seven briefs include a joint contribution from Muslim and Hindu groups as well as from Jewish and Christian groups, including the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) and representatives from various Protestant denominations.

In their respective briefings, the diverse coalition explains why the protection of religious freedom is crucial for those who are practicing members of a minority faith.

“Abortion has been at the center of a religious, moral, political, and judicial firestorm for decades,” the amicus briefing filed by the Christian coalition reads. “Until recently, supporters and opponents of abortion rights acknowledged that coercing religious organizations to support abortion triggers profound questions of religious freedom.”

Having previously forced religious charity organizations to include contraception in their employee health plans, the briefing states, “New York has taken the long next step” by “dragooning religious organizations into becoming complicit in abortion,” a move the briefing calls “an intolerable invasion of religious autonomy.”

“The Constitution protects the free exercise of religion,” the brief submitted by The Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness adds. “In a religiously pluralistic and highly regulated society like ours, there can be no free exercise of religion for minority faiths without religious exemptions.”

The Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case “later this fall,” according to Becket.