The United States Supreme Court's decision granting relief to the Little Sisters of the Poor is a victory for both religious and women’s freedom, according to attorneys at the Thomas More Society. In two cases announced on July 8, 2020, Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, et al., and Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. Pennsylvania, et al., the court upheld the Trump administration’s exemption from President Obama’s HHS Mandate for those with religious or moral objections to the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services’ contraception and abortifacient mandate.

Michael McHale, Thomas More Society Counsel, noted, “The right of the Little Sisters to be free from a mandate to facilitate the use of contraception and abortifacients is protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits the federal government from wielding even neutral and generally applicable laws against the sacred right of religious freedom. Thankfully, the Trump administration agreed and invoked RFRA in exempting the Little Sisters and religious non-profits, writ large, from the Obama contraception and abortifacient mandate.”

“Today the high court declared that the Trump religious exemption is legal under the terms of both Obamacare and RFRA, thus bringing an end, at least for now, to nine years of discrimination against the Little Sisters’ and other religious non-profits’ right to be free from the coerced provision of contraception and abortifacients. As a result, this decision is to be applauded,” observed McHale.

The Thomas More Society represented a group of women scholars in supporting the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charitable organization that provides physical and spiritual care for the elderly in thirty countries. The filed amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief also supported the United States federal government, for allowing those with sincerely held religious objections to be exempt from forced coverage of elective abortion and contraception.

Helen Alvaré, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, spoke on behalf of Women Scholars, a group of distinguished female academics from dozens of law schools, universities, and seminaries, stating, “The Supreme Court’s decision goes a good distance toward vindicating our most cherished constitutional rights. The mandate threatened religious liberty and endorsed a reductionist and harmful understanding of women’s freedom. The religious exemptions as defined by the current administration appropriately counter this.”

The State of Pennsylvania sued the federal government to challenge the legality of a religious exemption to the federal mandate that employers provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-causing drugs in health plans. The Little Sisters intervened in that lawsuit to protect their rights but lost at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The United States Supreme Court agreed to take up their appeal and heard the oral arguments, via historic teleconference, in May 2020.