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In 2011, the federal government issued a regulation that would have required the Little Sisters to provide contraceptives and abortifacients in violation of their deeply held religious beliefs or pay millions of dollars in fines. After a long battle in the lower courts, during which the government told the nuns they were fighting an “invisible dragon,” the Supreme Court finally stepped in and unanimously ordered the government to leave the Little Sisters alone and find another solution. The government admitted that it had other ways to distribute contraceptives, and in 2017, the federal government issued a new rule with broad religious exemptions for religious ministries like the Little Sisters of the Poor.
But Pennsylvania, California, and several other states immediately sued, arguing that the government doesn’t have the authority to issue the religious exemption, threatening not only the Little Sisters’ ministry but religious accommodations for countless others.
Learn more about the case background
What’s at stake?
Our Constitution does not require the government to punish any religious person for living out their faith. The government already recognizes religious exemptions for employees who cannot work on the Sabbath, doctors and nurses who cannot participate in religiously objectionable procedures, and faith groups that choose to hire only individuals who share their beliefs. Followed to their conclusion, Pennsylvania’s arguments would threaten the longstanding, long-accepted tradition of religious exemptions to federal laws that protect religious minorities and allow diverse beliefs to flourish in our society.
When will this fight be over?
The Court should put an end to this seven-year-long legal battle once and for all, grant the Little Sisters permanent relief from the contraceptive mandate so that they can serve the elderly poor without violating their beliefs, and affirm the importance of religious exemptions for the millions of Americans who rely on protection from burdensome laws in order to live out their faith.