BOSTON — Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court-brief February 27 in federal court on behalf of the March for Life and Dordt College in support of the current administration’s HHS rule exempting them from the previous administration’s abortion pill mandate.
Both March for Life and Dordt College have been involved in separate lawsuits challenging the mandate that forces employers, regardless of their moral convictions, to provide abortion-inducing drugs to their employees under threat of heavy financial penalties. Issued last October, the new HHS rules protect the nonprofits and pave the way to potential settlements in their lawsuits.
On the same day that HHS issued its interim final rule protecting nonprofit religious and pro-life organizations, the state of California — later joined by Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Virginia — filed the lawsuit State of California v. Hargan in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to challenge the rule. Massachusetts filed its own lawsuit, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Both cases raise issues affecting both March for Life, a nonsectarian pro-life organization, and Dordt College, a Christian institution of higher learning in Sioux Center, Iowa.
“All Americans should have the freedom to peacefully live and work consistently with their deeply held beliefs without fear of government punishment,” said ADF Senior Counsel Greg Baylor. “The HHS rule follows the Constitution, federal law, and precedents by which federal agencies have protected freedom of conscience. March for Life and Dordt College have vital interests in ensuring that these protections are not jeopardized so that they can continue to fulfill their respective missions.”
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