DALLAS — GuideStone Financial Services has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court against the government’s contraceptive mandate that will require certain ministries served by GuideStone and a host of other religious nonprofit organizations to provide abortion-causing drugs and devices in their employer health plans or risk crippling fines.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled July 14 that religious organizations including GuideStone must either cover FDA-approved contraceptives in employee insurance plans or follow the government’s rules for opting out of the contraceptive mandate through a special “accommodation” option.
But the accommodation itself is an issue, the plaintiffs argued. The act of filling out the accommodation form that kicks in third-party coverage would make the organizations a party to providing the very drugs and devices they oppose on religious grounds.
The 10th Circuit opinion came in three combined cases that included not only GuideStone as a party but two Southern Baptist-affiliated schools — Truett-McConnell College in Georgia and Oklahoma Baptist University — and Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic order of nuns in Denver, Colorado.
(RNS, BP)
Share with others: