As any former Catholic school student knows, you don’t mess with nuns.
And yesterday, former President Barack Obama learned that the hard way.
The Little Sisters of the Poor religious order scored a major 7-2 win in a Supreme Court case challenging Obama’s signature health care legislation.
Obamacare contained a controversial mandate that required employer-provided health insurance plans to cover birth control.
Many religious organizations that oppose birth control, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, saw the mandate as an attack on their religious freedoms.
The Trump Administration actually expanded exemptions to the birth control mandate for religious groups. That’s when the State of Pennsylvania hauled the Little Sisters of the Poor to court, claiming their exemption was illegal. They threatened to fine the group, whose members take a vow of poverty, for millions of dollars.
Big mistake.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration was within its rights to weaken the Obamacare mandate and expand the birth control exemptions. And the Little Sisters of the Poor don’t have to offer health coverage that violates their religious convictions.
“For over 150 years, the Little Sisters have engaged in faithful service and sacrifice, motivated by a religious calling to surrender all for the sake of their brother,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. “But for the past seven years, they — like many other religious objectors who have participated in the litigation and rulemakings leading up to today’s decision — have had to fight for the ability to continue in their noble work without violating their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The 7-2 ruling was especially remarkable because even liberal justices like Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan sided with the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
The Little Sisters of the Poor is a Catholic women’s organization dedicated to helping the impoverished and elderly. It was founded in France nearly 200 years ago, and its members now serve in 31 countries around the world.
The Horn editorial team