The national pro-life community in the United States is celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Obama administration’s HHS Preventive Service abortion pill mandate as a victory for religious freedom and for women’s rights.
As Breitbart News’s senior legal analyst Ken Klukowski wrote Monday, “Today in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a key regulation in President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation is illegal as applied to millions of Americans of faith, as well as their businesses or organizations.”
Barbara Green, co-founder of Hobby Lobby, said in a statement following the decision through the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Hobby Lobby:
Our family is overjoyed by the Supreme Court’s decision. Today the nation’s highest court has re-affirmed the vital importance of religious liberty as one of our country’s founding principles. The Court’s decision is a victory, not just for our family business, but for all who seek to live out their faith. We are grateful to God and to those who have supported us on this difficult journey.
Reacting to the high court’s decision, Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, told Breitbart News, “The victory today is a major step forward for religious freedom. Citizens do not lose their religious freedom simply because they choose to organize a business.”
Pavone continued:
There is still more to be done to correct the errors of the HHS mandate, however, because the courts need to rule on our Priests for Life case, now in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as the cases of the other religious non-profit groups. As Mr. David Green, CEO of Hobby Lobby has said, “Our family joins in prayerful support of the Priests for Life case against the HHS mandate. As our Hobby Lobby case represents the concerns of businesses, so the Priests for Life case represents the concerns of the religious non-profit groups. Together, we stand against this injustice, and for the law of God.”
Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser responded to the ruling in a press release: “This is a great victory for religious liberty – the bedrock of our founding.”
She added:
We thank the courageous Hahn and Green families for standing strong. They have had to endure the abuse of the radical abortion lobby and others who say they respect diversity but, in fact, endorse and impose conformity. Their message that women want free abortifacient drugs – and that they value these drugs above religious liberty – is demeaning to all American women and will be rejected by voters nationwide this fall. Americans of faith and conscience have been vindicated, and this will be a galvanizing moment for the vast majority of citizens who vehemently objected to this mandate and the elected leaders who thrust it upon us.
“Religious freedom is one of our most cherished rights, and we are ecstatic that the Supreme Court has sent such a strong message protecting them,” said Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
“We are especially thankful that the Court saw right through the Obama Administration’s false claim to be working on behalf of all women with this unconstitutional mandate,” Nance added in a press statement. “As our brief to the Court said: ‘No one person, and certainly not the Government, speaks for the interests of all women, and the Mandate cannot be generalized as a measure that advances the interests of all women.'”
Nance continued:
The mandate served only that group of women who support the president’s radical pro-abortion agenda – an agenda that would sacrifice our constitutional right to the free exercise of religion at the altar of so-called reproductive rights. It clearly works against those free-thinking women CWA represents who reject society’s imposed feminist values for the freedom envisioned by our founding principles of liberty and justice for all.
“Today’s ruling should restore Americans’ confidence that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects people from government coercion,” Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association, said in a press release. “This is a rebuke to the Obama administration’s extremist argument that the government can force employers to choose between their faith and crippling fines.”
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, advisory board member with The Catholic Association, added, “The ruling today by the United States Supreme Court is a victory against the abortion-pill mandate. It gives hope to people of faith all over this great country which was founded on the principles of religious liberty.”
“This sets a precedent for the many other cases similarly concerned with winning relief from this unjust mandate,” Christie said. “No one should be forced to violate their conscience just because they are in business to make a living.”
Rev. Sean O. Sheridan, TOR, president of Franciscan University, said in a press statement that while the university is still evaluating the decision, his “initial reaction is positive.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed today the fundamental right to free exercise of religion guaranteed by the Constitution,” Sheridan said. “Much work remains to be done to protect the religious freedom of all citizens from the ill-conceived HHS mandate, but this decision in favor of the owners of Hobby Lobby is certainly progress.”
Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), related the Supreme Court’s ruling to Arizona’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R).
“Every American should be free to live and work according to their faith – a fundamental principle affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court today,” said Herrod in a press statement. “This decision underscores the purpose of Arizona’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act – to balance a compelling governmental interest with every American’s freedom to live and work according to their faith.”
“The Court’s ruling exemplifies how the CAP-supported SB 1062 would have protected individual liberty, while protecting against unlawful abuse of religious freedom,” she added. “Like the proposed SB 1062 would have affirmed, the Supreme Court said today that no one should be forced to surrender their First Amendment religious freedom protections merely because they start a business.”
“Being pregnant is not a disease, and abortion-causing drugs are not ‘healthcare,'” said Herrod. “It is unconscionable for the federal government to attempt to force people of faith to pay for these drugs.”