Bishop welcomes Supreme Court ruling in lawsuit fighting state’s abortion mandate

Saying he was “gratified and grateful,” Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of the Diocese of Albany applauded the Supreme Court on Nov. 1 for ordering New York courts to reconsider Diocese of Albany v. Emami, a case challenging New York’s coercive abortion mandate.

 “We are gratified and grateful that the Supreme Court has recognized the serious constitutional concerns over New York State’s heavy-handed abortion mandate on religious employers,” said Bishop Scharfenberger. “We are confident that now that the Court has ordered the case remanded for reconsideration in light of (the) Fulton v. Philadelphia decision, the unconstitutional regulatory action taken by New York State will ultimately be completely overturned as incompatible with our country’s First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.”

New York requires employers to cover abortions in their health insurance plans — even if the employers are religious groups such as the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, an Anglican order of nuns dedicated to a peaceful, contemplative monastic life and youth outreach. After New York courts upheld the coercive mandate, the Diocese of Albany, which originally began fighting the regulation issued by the Department of Financial Services (DFS) in 2016, took the fight to the Supreme Court, which vacated the lower courts’ rulings and ordered a rehearing of the case. In the Fulton case — in a unanimous decision June 17 — the Supreme Court said that a Catholic social service agency should not have been excluded from Philadelphia's foster-care program because it did not accept same-sex couples as foster parents.

“We believe that every person is made in the image of God,” said Mother Miriam of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, the oldest Anglican religious order in America. “That’s why we believe in the sanctity of human life, and why we seek to serve those of all faiths — or no faith at all — in our community. We’re grateful that the Supreme Court has taken action in our case and hopeful that, this time around, the New York Court of Appeals will preserve our ability to serve and encourage our neighbors.”

Bishop Scharfenberger has been one of the leading voices questioning the constitutionality of mandates placed on insurers by the state's Department of Financial Services that would force religious and other employers to pay for abortions in employee health plans. In 2017, a backdoor attempt at abortion expansion by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration was challenged by the Diocese of Albany and other plaintiffs. After Cuomo’s Abortion Expansion Act was stymied in the State Legislature, where it was vigorously opposed by Catholic and other religious organizations, the Cuomo administration quietly added “model language” which would force insurance plans to cover abortions, even in Catholic-sponsored health-care plans.

In January of 2019, State Supreme Court Justice Richard McNally dismissed the Diocese’s challenge to the abortion mandate, which the Diocese promptly appealed. Then on Nov. 23, 2020, the New York State Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

New York’s law has only a limited religious exemption — for religious groups that primarily serve and employ people of their own religion. This exemption excludes the Sisterhood of St. Mary because they sponsor a 4-H club and allow local youth to lease some of their prized Cashmere goats as part of their agricultural outreach ministry. 

Other religious groups targeted by the abortion mandate include the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the First Bible Baptist Church of Hilton, and Catholic Charities, which all joined forces against the abortion mandate. What all of these diverse groups have in common is that they seek to serve all people in their communities: the First Bible Baptist Church conducts outreach via its local youth ministry, Catholic Charities provides adoption and maternity services to its community, and the Carmelite Sisters operate the Teresian Nursing Home in Albany. But because they offer these services to people in their communities regardless of their faith background, the state holds that they must offer abortion services in their insurance plans.

With Catholic News Service