Contraception Mandate Struck Down

"Yesterday, Judge Brian Cogan of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, not only struck down Obamacare's contraception mandate as applied to religious non-profit organizations, but also sent a strong signal that federal courts were losing patience with President Obama's many stitches of executive power," writes Conn Carroll.

Previous courts had ruled against President Obama's contraception mandate as applied to for-profit entities (see Sebelius v Hobby Lobby), but this was the first court to hold that participating in Obama's scheme to provide free birth control is a substantial burden on the free practice of religion (specifically the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and its affiliate organizations).

The contraception mandate "directly compels plaintiffs, through the threat of onerous penalties, to undertake actions that their religion forbids," Cogan wrote. "There is no way that a court can, or should, determine that a coerced violation of conscience is of insufficient quantum to merit constitutional protection."

The court "forcefully rejected three key Obama defenses of the mandate:"

• that there was a compelling interest in uniform enforcement of the contraception mandate;
• that Obamacare's contraception mandate, as implemented for religious organizations, id not, in face, mandate contraception; and
• that Obama's failure to convince Congress to "fix" Obamacare authorized him to enforce his contraception mandate in the manner he did.

Read more in Federal Judge Calls Obamacare "Totally Ineffective" While Striking Down Contraception Mandate.