Sudarsana Srinivasan, Health Fellow
National Women’s Law Center
In a welcome move, the Supreme Court last week refused to review the lower court’s ruling against Catholic Charities’ challenge to New York’s contraceptive equity law. The challenged law, New York’s Women’s Health and Wellness Act, was enacted to address gender disparities in insurance coverage by requiring health plans to cover a variety of services utilized by women, from mammograms to cervical cancer and osteoporosis screenings. Catholic Charities and other social-service religious groups objected to the law’s requirement that employers cover contraceptives as part of any prescription drug plan they offer their employees.
The NY law contains a well-defined religious exemption that covers organizations with a religious mission that predominantly serve and employ only members of their own religion. So organizations such as churches, temples, and mosques are free to not provide contraceptives as part of a prescription plan. However, the groups challenging the requirement, though religious, have a social-service mission and employ and serve individuals of diverse faiths and don’t qualify for the exemption.
Nonetheless, Catholic Charities argued that their First Amendment rights were violated because providing coverage endorsed the “offensive” message of promoting contraceptive use. The New York Court of Appeals rightly rejected this argument and mandated compliance, acknowledging that the law had already struck the right balance between religious liberty and providing women with basic health insurance coverage. The court’s decision recognizes that contraceptives are used by a majority of women; the fact that most private insurance plans don’t cover them is a serious gap in providing basic health care for women.
This is Catholic Charities’ second unsuccessful challenge of a contraceptive equity law. In 2004, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case against a very similar California contraceptive equity law. Although the addition of Justices Roberts and Alito had raised the possible specter of a successful challenge, this recent gambit also failed. The Court’s refusal to hear these cases affirms that states can take steps to prevent employers from discriminating against women in prescription drug plans. Twenty-four states already have contraceptive coverage laws. Check out our state consumer guide for more information on each state’s law, including a chart that details the religious exemptions contained in laws like New York’s.
The courts, states, and employers should continue to ensure that women have equal access to insurance benefits, including contraceptives, no matter who happens to sign their paychecks.
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