AU: religious institutions no right to interfere in private moral choices of students & staff.
Church-State Watchdog Is Only National Group Representing Women In Dispute
The U.S. Supreme Court today sent a legal case over access to birth control at the University of Notre Dame back to a lower court for further review.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has intervened in the case on behalf of three Notre Dame students, says the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will receive the case again, should stick to its original ruling and make it clear that religious institutions have no right to interfere in the private moral choices of students and staff.
“Notre Dame’s complaint here is trivial,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Under the current rules, the school is not required to pay for birth control. It must merely tolerate someone’s private decision to use it. In no way is the school’s religious liberty being violated by what students and staff may do in the privacy of their own homes.”
The controversy centers on a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires religiously affiliated institutions to step aside and allow third-party providers to give no-cost contraceptives to employees and students. (The institutions are not required to pay for the birth control but merely must inform the government of their objection, so that the government can arrange for a third-party insurer to provide contraceptive coverage to the institutions’ employees.)
Read the rest of this press release at au.org »
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