Media Advisory: What the government got wrong in the Little Sisters of the Poor Supreme Court case Media Advisory: What the government got wrong in the Little Sisters of the Poor Supreme Court case

WASHINGTON, D.C. – New evidence highlights the contradictions in the government’s arguments against the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are being forced to comply with a mandate that already exempts 100 million Americans. On Wednesday, the Little Sisters of the Poor will stand before the Supreme Court, which will have to consider why the government refuses to provide a religious exemption from the HHS mandate for the Little Sisters, when 1 in 3 Americans don’t have health plans that must comply with the Mandate. (See the numbers here).

Large corporations – including Exxon, Chevron, and Pepsi – are exempt because they never changed their plans and so are grandfathered. The U.S. military family plan and insurance for the disabled are also exempt from the mandate. These plans get to make their own choices about whether to provide free contraceptives, and can make those decisions based on cost or convenience. Yet the government refuses to give the same right to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns that take religious vows to care for the elderly poor. After promising that the Little Sisters’ religious beliefs would be protected, the government created a new regulation requiring the Little Sisters to change their healthcare plan to offer services that violate their Catholic beliefs.

The government argues that since it has offered to reimburse the costs of the services it wants the Little Sisters to provide, they should have no moral objection to offering them. For the Little Sisters, this is  not about money, but conscience, and whether they should be forced to change their healthcare plan to offer services they morally object to, especially since those services could be provided more effectively through the government’s healthcare exchange.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Little Sisters’ case on Wednesday, March 23, 2016.

For more information or to arrange an interview with a Becket attorney, please contact Melinda Skea at  media@becketlaw.org  or 202-349-7224. Interviews can be arranged in English, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

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Becket   is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions and has a 100% win-rate before the United States Supreme Court. For over 20 years, it has successfully defended clients of all faiths, including  Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Native Americans, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians  (learn more).