SCOTUS Gives Victory To Nuns Fighting New York Abortion Mandate

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered New York courts to reconsider a case in which the state forced Catholic and Anglican nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches, and faith-based social ministries to pay for their employees’ abortions.

The case, Diocese of Albany v. Harris, involved the nuns and their fellow plaintiffs suing over the New York requirement in 2017. “When the New York State Department of Financial Services initially proposed the abortion mandate for health care plans, it promised to exempt all employers with religious objections. But after facing pressure from abortion activists, New York narrowed the exemption to cover only religious groups that primarily teach religion and primarily serve and hire those who share their faith,” the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit law firm, noted.

But New York courts upheld the mandate, at which point the firms Becket and Jones Day appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. In 2021, the Supreme Court reversed the state courts’ decision and told them to reconsider it after Becket won the case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, but the state courts stated that Fulton was inapplicable to the Diocese case.

Then, last week, Becket won a unanimous victory in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission. That case involved the court ruling in favor of a Catholic charity that sued the state of Wisconsin after it was forced to pay certain unemployment taxes while other religious organizations were exempted. That ruling led to the court’s decision to remand the Diocese decision back to the New York Court of Appeals.

“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted,” the Supreme Court wrote. “The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for New York for further consideration in light of Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Comm’n.”

“New York wants to browbeat nuns into paying for abortions for the great crime of serving all those in need,” Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, stated. “For the second time in four years, the Supreme Court has made clear that bully tactics like these have no place in our nation or our law. We are confident that these religious groups will finally be able to care for the most vulnerable consistent with their beliefs.”

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