California has been ordered to pay a combined $1.4 million to four churches, after two federal courts ruled that they could not be forced to provide health insurance cover for abortions.
In August 2022, District Chief Judge Kimberly Mueller declared it unconstitutional for California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) to deny Foothill Church, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills and The Shepherd of the Hills Church an exemption on the grounds of religious belief from ‘elective abortion coverage’ for their employees.
Following the ruling, Southern District Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro has now determined that Skyline Wesleyan Church should have also been exempt from funding abortions and ordered the State to pay the legal costs for all four churches.
‘Collaborators’
Jeremiah Galus, of religious liberty group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) which supported the churches, said: “The government can’t force a church or any other religious employer to violate their faith and conscience by participating in funding abortion.
“For years, California officials, in collaboration with Planned Parenthood, have unconstitutionally targeted faith-based organizations. This is a significant victory for the churches we represent, the conscience rights of their members, and other religious organizations that shouldn’t be ordered by the government to violate some of their deepest faith convictions.”
The government can’t force a church or any other religious employer to violate their faith and conscience by participating in funding abortion.
ADF attorneys uncovered a series of emails in which abortion giant Planned Parenthood put pressure on the DMHC to deny the churches an exemption.
One email urged the DMHC not to “approve any further plans that exclude coverage for abortion or other reproductive health care service. This includes a clarification that there is no such thing as an elective or voluntary abortion exclusion.”
Hobby Lobby
In 2014, California notified health insurance companies that policy cover for abortion, classified by the State as a “basic health service”, should be mandatory for all employers, including churches.
The mandate was brought forward despite the Hobby Lobby case, in which the US Supreme Court backed a Christian-run business that wanted to provide health insurance policies in keeping with its pro-life beliefs.
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