Supreme Court Unjustly Gives Religious Employers Power to Deny Women Birth Control

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Charmaine Riley, [email protected], 202.548.7166

WASHINGTON – Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Supreme Court ruled today in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania that religious employers can deny contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act based on religious or moral opposition: 

“Religious freedom does not create a license to discriminate. The Affordable Care Act guarantees health care coverage, including contraceptive coverage, to employees and students. This troubling decision allows employers and universities to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage based on religious or moral opposition. This type of discrimination will potentially inflict harm on hundreds of thousands of people and disproportionately impact women of color and people in lower-income groups. We call on employers and universities to reject the discrimination sanctioned by the Court and continue to provide employers and students with the birth control coverage afforded to them under the ACA.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the ACLU filed a “friend of the court” brief in April urging the Supreme Court to deny the Trump administration’s efforts to deprive women access to contraceptive care under the Affordable Care Act.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 220 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.