Employers who are objected to covering contraceptives in their insurance plans based on moral grounds, rather than religious grounds, are equally protected under the law to be exempt from the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
In 2012, houses of worship-- like churches and synagogues-- were exempt from the contraception mandate. Subsequently, the Supreme Court ruled that closely-held companies of religious employers were to be given exemption from the mandate as well, in 2014, according to Christian Post.
March for Life, a pro-life organization that has staged annual rallies in Washington D.C., is neither a house of worship nor a religious organization. Under the ACA's contraceptive mandate, it is required to provide contraception to its employees, the government reasoning that the group is "not religious and is not a church" according to the New York Times.
The organization sued the Department of Health and Human Services in July 2014, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, over the contraceptive mandate, arguing that the mandate is unconstitutional for not granting the same exemption to non religious groups as it does to religious groups.
Judge Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of March for Life, asserting that the mandate is a violation of equal protection under the law and that moral objection should be given equal treatment to religious objection.
"If the purpose of the religious employer exemption is, as HHS states, to respect the anti-abortifacient tenets of an employment relationship, then it makes no rational sense "” indeed, no sense whatsoever "” to deny March (for) Life that same respect," Leon wrote in the ruling on Monday.
"We are delighted that the court has ruled in our favor on this crucially important case. The government should not be allowed to force organizations like the March for Life to have health insurance with drugs and devices that can cause an abortion," said March for Life president Jeanne Monaghan Mancini in a statement.
March for Life is a pro-life organization that was formed in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that acknowledged abortion as a constitutional right in 1973.
