Washington State Forced This Church to Pay for Abortion. A Court Just Ruled in the Church's Favorhttps://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/07/22/seattle-church-forced-to-pay-for-abortion-gets-a-second-chance-to-make-its-case-in-court-n1464062On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave a Seattle-area church a second chance to make its case in court after a Washington state law forced the church to pay for abortion in its health care plan. The district court had thrown out Cedar Park Church’s lawsuit, claiming that the church lacked standing to challenge the law because it could not state an injury. Three judges on the 9th Circuit reversed that ruling.
Senate Bill 6219, signed into law in March 2018, requires employers to provide abortion coverage in their health care plans if they also offer maternity care coverage to employees. The law does not include exemptions for pro-life or religious employers such as Cedar Park Church. Cedar Park’s health care insurer, Kaiser Permanente, included coverage for surgical abortion directly in the church’s health care plan after the law went into effect. The insurer indicated that it would remove the coverage if a court held that the law cannot be applied to churches.
“Cedar Park’s complaint plausibly alleged that, due to the enactment of SB 6219, its health insurer stopped offering a plan with abortion coverage restrictions and Cedar Park could not procure comparable replacement coverage. This is sufficient to state an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to SB 6219,” the three-judge panel ruled.
It is telling that the judge in the district court saw no "injury" to the church in being forced by this law to violate one of its core beliefs. That's a blatant violation of the First Amendment's
Free Exercise clause. The church should be prepared to file a motion for this judge to recuse himself/herself for demonstrated prejudice.
