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Punting a Problem Rarely Resolves One
The Supreme Court’s Misstep on Birth Control
As we wait for the Supreme Court’s opinion on the Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania decision, it is worth revisiting the claims and history in the case. This particular case was combined with Trump v. Pennsylvania case as they both centered around similar issues. Unfortunately, this caused quite a bit of confusion during oral arguments as I will discuss later. One of the main issues, in this case, is whether the government followed the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) when changing the regulations regarding who could claim a religious exemption. In 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services wrote new regulations greatly broadening the entities that were eligible to claim an exemption to include those who have a “moral” objection. There was no notice of the changes nor public comment period. The states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey sued maintaining that the rules violate the Constitution, federal anti-discrimination law, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The lower courts found for the states and the rules were halted. The Justice Department, the Administration, and the Little Sisters of the Poor sued to have them reinstated leading to the case this year.
In order to understand this case though, we must go back to the Zubik v. Burwell case in 2017. That…
