(LifeSiteNews) — The Little Sisters of the Poor return to court on Tuesday, urging the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to restore their right not to subsidize abortifacient contraception.
Years ago, the Obama administration mandated that employers subsidize the provision of contraceptives, including abortifacient drugs, to their employees under the auspices of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic institution that provides support for the elderly poor, refused to comply, as did other religious employers, sparking years of litigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court sided 7-2 with the Little Sisters in 2020, upholding a rule from the first Trump administration that had exempted such religious institutions from the mandate. But left-wing states refused to accept defeat, keeping the nuns in court for years. Last August, a federal district court in Philadelphia sided with Pennsylvania and New Jersey against the Little Sisters.
On July 6, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced its attorneys would be representing the Little Sisters before the Third Circuit the following day.
“The 14-year legal crusade against the Little Sisters has been needless, grotesque, and un-American,” Becket president Mark Rienzi said. “The States have no business trying to take away the Little Sisters’ federal civil rights. The Third Circuit should toss the States’ lawsuit into the dustbin of history and uphold the protection the Little Sisters already won at the Supreme Court … twice.”
“For nearly 200 years, our order has welcomed the elderly poor and dying into our homes as we would welcome Christ Himself,” Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor added. “It is painful that we have spent more than a decade defending that mission in court. We simply want to continue our work without being forced to violate our faith, and we pray Pennsylvania and New Jersey will end this needless harassment.”
“At the Third Circuit in Philadelphia this morning, my (Becket) colleague Mark Rienzi asked the court to block the lower court’s ruling and toss the states’ case into the dustbin of history where it belongs,” Becket’s Lori Windham said. “After 15 years, you’d think government officials would know better than to fight nuns.” Becket added that a ruling is expected by the end of the year.
Contraception is routinely framed as an alternative to pregnancy by preventing conception rather than destroying an already-conceived human being. But several forms of contraception do have an abortifacient capacity that the abortion lobby has gone to great lengths to obscure. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a purportedly impartial medical authority that in reality is heavily pro-abortion, redefined “conception” in the 1960s to refer to implantation rather than fertilization for the purpose of making contraception more culturally acceptable.
For example, in January 2023, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) amended Plan B’s label to “clarify” that it was not an abortifacient. But such drugs do in fact have abortifacient potential, and whether they prevent conception or implantation depends on when they are taken relative to a woman’s cycle.
“If Plan B is taken five to two days before egg release is due to happen, the interference with the LH signal prevents a woman from releasing an egg, no fertilization happens, and no embryo is formed,” Dr. Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists explained, citing numerous studies. However, if the pill is taken during the “two-day window in which embryos can form but positive pregnancy tests don’t occur,” studies indicate it “has a likely embryocidal effect in stopping pregnancy.”