The Supreme Court has agreed on Friday to rule on a challenge to the Affordable Care Act from religious non-profits to settle whether religious non-profit institutions-- such as universities, hospitals, and charities-- should be exempt from the contraception mandate.
Objectors say that the contraceptive mandate violates Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal law that maintains that the government cannot burden a person’s exercise of religion and must have a compelling reason to do so in the “least restrictive means.”
The court ruled last year that closely-held corporations are not subject to the contraceptive mandate and that religiously affiliated nonprofits can “opt-out” by informing the government or insurance-provider which will then prompt a third-party insurance company to step in to pay for the contraception.
Religious non-profit organizations have objected to this accommodation, saying that the act of opting out still makes them complicit to the mandate.
Such objections have been brought before federal courts across the country. However, most judges have ruled cases to maintain that the “opt-out” requirement is not a “substantial burden” on their religious freedom.
In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled contrary to that position, siding with religious non-profit institutions.
"We conclude that compelling their participation in the accommodation process by threat of severe monetary penalty is a substantial burden on their exercise of religion," the court said.
On Friday, the justices said that they would hear several different cases in one combined case to decide whether the blanket exclusions that have been granted to churches and other houses of worship should be extended to religious nonprofits, like colleges, hospitals, and charities.
