District Court In California Gives Pro-Lifers Good News On Mandate Forcing Churches To Pay For Abortions

A district court in California decided last Thursday that a state law mandating companies, which includes religious organizations, provide funds for elective abortions as part of the health insurance benefits package offered to employees is not constitutional. This is great news for churches especially as it goes against the faith to support the murder of the pre-born in any way, including financially. A law like this is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

The Daily Wire is reporting that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California has ruled in favor of three churches in the state. Those three institutions are Foothill Church in Glendora, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, located in Chino, and the Shepherd of the Hills Church which is in Porter Ranch. The court sided with the three churches in challenges to the Knox Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975.

Check out some of the details from the report:

The court ruled against the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), which sent letters in 2014 to seven private health insurers “directing them to remove any limitations on or exclusions of abortion care services from the health care coverage they offered to various employers,” which included the three plaintiffs.

DMHC sent the letters after Planned Parenthood asked the state to “fix” such exemptions “to ensure that employers cannot deny women coverage of abortion services,” according to emails shared by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys. 

Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit legal organization for protecting religious freedoms that represented the churches, filed a motion in April asking the court to “definitively rule in their favor and allow the churches to operate according to their religious beliefs, which uphold the sanctity of unborn lives.”

The nonprofit’s senior counsel, Jeremiah Galus, went on to say that the government had no authority to force churches or any other employers within religious organizations to provide funding for the murder of the pre-born, which would ultimately be a violation of both faith and conscience. All of that is protected in the First Amendment, which is something that most liberals either do not care about at all or for some odd reason legitimately do not understand all that it entails. My money is on the first option.

“For years, California has unconstitutionally targeted faith-based organizations, so we’re pleased the court has found this mandate unconstitutional and will allow the churches we represent to operate freely according to their religious beliefs,” Galus commented. 

“Elective abortions are not part of ‘basic health care,’” the attorney added. “They have no business being forced into the medical coverage provided by churches that do not wish to support terminating lives due to very real, sincere, and well-known faith convictions.”

The report also noted that Chief Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, stated in her opinion for the court that Mary Watanabe, who is the director of DMHC, “has not shown ‘[she] lacks other means of achieving [her] desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by [plaintiffs].’”

She then said that the denial of the churches’ request by the director for exceptions in order to help accommodate the religious beliefs they hold, based only on the fact that the requests that were made did not originate with a plan, was “not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.”

Lawmakers in the state of California are now looking to improve “reproductive health care in the state,” after the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier in the summer by the Supreme Court.

This is a big victory for religious liberty, which is a right the progressives in this country loathe. They hate it so passionately because it encourages people to be self-governing, taking care of themselves and providing for themselves responsibly so as not to rely on the government for their needs. In order for the left to transform America into a socialist country, they need people hooked and dependent on the government as their surrogate parent. Religion encourages the exact opposite, which is one of many reasons they oppose it.