(The Center Square) – New York religious groups can challenge a state law requiring employers to provide no-cost insurance coverage for abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out a ruling by the state’s highest court that upheld the law.
The justices granted a writ of certiorari and sent the long-standing legal challenge back to the New York Court of Appeals on Monday. The order is for the panel of judges to reconsider their decision upholding the law in light of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in June that Wisconsin had discriminated against a Catholic charity by requiring it to pay state unemployment taxes.
A lawsuit filed in September by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and a coalition of nuns, churches and faith-based social ministries asked justices to take up a case challenging a New York State Department of Financial Services’ policy they say violates their religious beliefs and constitutional rights. The 2017 rule requires insurers to cover medically necessary abortions.
Last year, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the regulation and the religious exemption didn’t violate the free exercise clause. The plaintiffs petitioned the Supreme Court, which had previously considered the law, to take up the legal challenge.
“New York’s mandate imposes immense burdens on countless religious entities opposed to abortion as a matter of deep-seated religious conviction,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint.
The groups said the mandate forced groups – including a Baptist church and a Catholic nursing home – to cover abortions in their employee health plans “over their religious objections.”
New York’s law includes exemptions for certain religious entities, such as those that seek to promote religious values or serve those who share the religious tenets of the organization, but religious groups argued those exemptions are too narrow.
Lawyers for New York defended the regulations in court proceedings, saying they were intended to prohibit health insurance companies from “limiting or excluding coverage based on type of illness, accident, treatment or medical condition.”
In its 2024 ruling, New York’s Court of Appeals rejected arguments that the state’s regulations are discriminatory because the insurance mandate does not cover some secular employers.
This is the second time that the New York law has been considered by the high court. In 2021, the court’s majority directed the state courts to reconsider their decision following a ruling about a Catholic charity in Philadelphia that declined to screen same-sex couples as foster parents.
There was no immediate comment from Attorney General Letita James, whose office defended the law, and it wasn’t clear on Tuesday when the appellate court will reconsider the litigation.
