Pasadena Religious Leaders React to Supreme Court Ruling on Contraception

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week affirming the legality of exemptions on the basis of religious objections for employers otherwise required to pay for contraception for employees under the Affordable Care Act, several religious leaders in Pasadena say the nuns who brought the lawsuit do not represent their views.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Los Angeles Archdiocese told Pasadena Now the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commenting for all bishops had issued a statement welcoming the Court order.

Wednesday’s 7-2 decision, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting, was hailed as a righteous victory by the Catholic nuns who filed the lawsuit seven years ago. The group, Little Sister of the Poor, had argued that forcing it to provide contraception to employees at two nonprofit organizations run by the Sisters violated their religious freedom.

“We are overjoyed that, once again, the Supreme Court has protected our right to serve the elderly without violating our faith,” Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters said in a statement reported by the Catholic News Service.

“Our life’s work and great joy is serving the elderly poor and we are so grateful that the contraceptive mandate will no longer steal our attention from our calling,” she said.

In its opinion, the Supreme Court determined that the federal department under the Trump Administration did not overstep their bounds when they provided the religious exception to the mandate for contraception included in the ACA. The ruling overturned a previous ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which the Supreme Court deemed “erroneous.”

“We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections. We accordingly reverse the Third Circuit’s judgment and remand with instructions to dissolve the nationwide preliminary injunction.”

Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Church in Pasadena was not celebrating the decision. She said she believed the ruling imposed religious views on others involuntarily.

“Today’s egregious Supreme Court decision has nothing to do with the free exercise of religion guaranteed by our Constitution, which is a guarantee that you are free to exercise your beliefs, not to impose them,” she said in a written statement. “Employers who seek to impose their religious beliefs on employees by limiting access to birth control through insurance plans are hijacking the sacred principle of religious freedom and using it as a weapon of mass distraction from the decades long effort to strip women of the agency to control their bodies and their lives.”

Furthermore, Russell said her religious convictions led her to the opposite conclusion as the plaintiff’s in the lawsuit.

“As Episcopalians, our baptismal covenant calls us to respect the dignity of every human being, and that includes the dignity of women to make their own choices about when and if to use birth control,” she said.

“Birth control and the ability to plan pregnancy is inextricably linked to economic stability and gender equity, and today’s decision disproportionately targets people of color, especially Black women, making life harder for the very people who are keeping our economy afloat during this pandemic,” according to Russell. “All Saints Church will continue to stand with our Planned Parenthood partners in fighting for a world where everyone can control their own bodies and make decisions for themselves, no matter who you work for, where you go to school, how much money you make, or the color of your skin.”

Pasadena Church Pastor Kerwin Manning said the issue is much more complex that simply pitting religious liberty against healthcare interests.

“This isn’t something that’s so cut and dry,” he said. “I definitely understand the reasoning behind the motion and the nuns from the Catholic Church, who, of course, have stricter views about abortion and contraception.”

“But I think that the more concerning issue for me is that the ruling will make people who are lower on the economic scale be responsible for paying for these things,” Manning said.

He added that he is aware that many women used forms of contraception for reasons other than birth control, such as treating uterine fibroids.

Under the decision, for some women, “this has to now come out of their pocket,” Manning said. “That could be a tremendous strain on that family’s income. So, the conversation isn’t as cut and dried as we would like to make it in many cases.”

Manning said in his experience, litigation is not often not the best way to spread a spiritual message.

“For me, as a local pastor, boots on the ground, I think there’s some things to be said still about relational ministry that would talk to someone who would be in that situation to find viable alternatives for them, which isn’t always abortion or contraception,” he said.