A U.S. appeals court ruled Friday against Catholic organizations with objections to the Obama administration’s latest opt-out rules for mandated contraceptive and sterilization health insurance coverage.
“To ask a group of priests to cooperate in the government’s plan to expand access to birth control and abortion-inducing drugs is about as contrary to religious freedom as you can get,” Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, said Nov. 14.
He said that if the government is sincere in providing an opt-out mechanism, “it is reasonable for us to insist that we be given a way to opt out that does not itself violate our moral conscience. And whether it violates our conscience is for us to say, not the government.”
Fr. Pavone’s comments came in reaction to a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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