Supreme Court Issues Post-Hobby Lobby Contraceptive Mandate Injunction

Author: Gloria Ju

July 9, 2014

The Supreme Court issued an order temporarily enjoining enforcement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) contraceptive coverage mandate and related regulations just a few days after handing down its Hobby Lobby decision. In Wheaton College v. Burwell, the Court ruled that Wheaton College, a Christian school, may refrain from certifying it has religious objections to the mandate pending its appeal of a federal district court's dismissal of Wheaton's claim in 2012 (followed by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissal in June 2014).

In light of numerous nonprofit religious organizations' claims that the ACA's contraceptive mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Obama administration offered an accommodation for such organizations. Specifically, organizations with religious objections could opt-out of the mandate by filing EBSA Form 700. However, organizations raised further objections to this accommodation, claiming that by filing the form, they were authorizing the insurance issuer to provide contraceptives.

Wheaton claims that filing the form designated by the government to opt-out of the contraceptive mandate (which then triggers the health insurance issuer to absorb the cost of contraceptives) violates its religious beliefs by making it complicit in the provision of birth control.

The dissent did not question the sincerity of Wheaton College's religious beliefs, but disagreed that an emergency injunction was warranted. The dissent argued that the Hobby Lobby decision expressly relied on the existence of the accommodation for nonprofit religious organizations in applying the RFRA to closely held for-profit organizations and "the Court...now retreats from that position."