(Chris Parker, Headline USA) A decades-old California law requiring businesses – including religious institutions – to fund abortions has finally been ruled unconstitutional.
A judge in The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California handed down the ruling after it was challenged by three prominent California churches, reported The Daily Wire.
The state’s Knox Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 mandated that businesses in the state cover elective abortions (those in which the mother’s life is not in danger).
In 2014, the California Department of Managed Health Care sent letters to insurers “directing them to remove any limitations on or exclusions of abortion care services from the health care coverage they offered to various employers.” That included the three churches who challenged the measure.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting religious freedom, filed a motion in April asking the court to “definitively rule in their favor and allow the churches to operate according to their religious beliefs, which uphold the sanctity of unborn lives.”
“For years, California has unconstitutionally targeted faith-based organizations, so we’re pleased the court has found this mandate unconstitutional and will allow the churches we represent to operate freely according to their religious beliefs,” Jeremiah Galus, the nonprofit’s senior counsel, said in a statement.
“Elective abortions are not part of ‘basic health care.’ They have no business being forced into the medical coverage provided by churches that do not wish to support terminating lives due to very real, sincere, and well-known faith convictions.”
The ruling comes shortly California’s state government responded to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by dedicating $200 million to “reproductive health care.” One of the provisions requires insurance companies to eliminate out-of-pocket fees for abortions. That includes out-of-state residents.
Much of the funding is part of a 15-bill package being promoted by the California Future of Abortion Council.
