WASHINGTON — Battles over health care and religious rights are sure to continue, even after the Supreme Court ruled Monday that family-owned for-profit corporations like Hobby Lobby are not required to provide insurance coverage of contraceptives to their employees if the companies object on religious grounds.
About 50 cases involving nonprofit organizations and a similar number involving for-profit companies are pending in federal courts around the country, and many of those plaintiffs intend to push forward with the argument that they should be able to opt out of providing or authorizing coverage that conflicts with their religious beliefs.
Perhaps the most prominent of these cases, a challenge to the contraceptive-coverage requirement involving an order of Roman Catholic nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, could hinge on the reasoning cited by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in his majority opinion in the Hobby Lobby case.
In his opinion, Justice Alito said the government had other, less restrictive ways of achieving its goal of ensuring access to contraceptive coverage. He pointed, for example, to an accommodation devised by the White House for certain nonprofit religious organizations, like hospitals and universities, that have “religious objections” to providing contraceptive coverage.
But that accommodation itself is being challenged in dozens of cases around the country, filed by plaintiffs including the University of Notre Dame and Catholic Charities of Philadelphia, as well as the Little Sisters of the Poor. They say the accommodation does not go far enough to protect their religious rights.
Some critics of Monday’s ruling said it could pose problems for the Little Sisters of the Poor and other nonprofit organizations that hope to challenge the contraceptive-coverage requirement before the court during its next term, which begins in October.
Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, who called the Hobby Lobby decision “a blow to women’s health,” said that Justice Alito’s opinion and a concurring opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested that they saw the accommodation as a reasonable way to address the concerns of nonprofit organizations.
“Today’s decision does not bode well for the nonprofit organizations,” Ms. Greenberger said.
But the court did not rule on the legality of the accommodation devised by federal officials for nonprofit organizations.
“We do not decide today whether an approach of this type complies” with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act for all purposes, Justice Alito said. He cited it to show that the government could have found a “less restrictive” alternative to the mandate imposed on for-profit businesses like Hobby Lobby.
Justice Kennedy said the federal rule “furthers a legitimate and compelling interest in the health of female employees.” At the same time, he said, “the accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it.”
Mark L. Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor, said that Monday’s ruling could help other groups challenging the contraceptive coverage provision.
“Today’s decision will be helpful to the Little Sisters and other nonprofit organizations because it rejects the idea that the government can tell religious believers that their beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial,” Mr. Rienzi said. “And that’s the argument the government has been using in cases involving nonprofit organizations.”
Under the accommodation, a nonprofit religious organization must fill out a Labor Department form certifying its objections. It gives a copy to its insurance company or the administrator of its health plan, which then, in most cases, becomes responsible for paying claims for contraceptive services. In this way, the Obama administration says, the nonprofit entity can exempt itself from any requirement to “contract, arrange, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage.”
Justice Alito said this approach “achieves all of the government’s aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty.”
But the Little Sisters of the Poor contends that, by signing the federal form, it would be designating someone else to provide the contraceptive drugs and devices to which it objects.
The Little Sisters “cannot execute the form because they cannot deputize a third party to sin on their behalf,” their lawyers told the Supreme Court in January. In response, the court told the Obama administration not to enforce the contraceptive-coverage requirement against the nuns, while they pursue their case in the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver.
Within hours after the Supreme Court ruling on Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, granted an injunction sought by the Eternal Word Television Network, founded by a cloistered nun to spread the teachings of the Catholic Church. The court said the Obama administration may not enforce the contraceptive-coverage requirement against the network.
The Supreme Court said that the regulation at issue in the Hobby Lobby case imposed a substantial burden on the rights of the company’s owners to exercise their religion. And it said this burden was unlawful because it failed a test set by a 1993 statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That law provides that the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless the burden is “the least restrictive means” to advance “a compelling governmental interest.”