Legal Victory For March For Life against Obama's Abortion Mandate

Lisa Bourne : Sep 2, 2015
LifeSiteNews.com

"The government should not be allowed to force organizations like the March for Life to have health insurance with drugs and devices that can cause an abortion."

(Washington, DC)—The group behind the world's largest pro-life event has prevailed in court against Barack Obama's abortion-pill mandate. (Photo via LifeSiteNews)

A federal court issued an order Monday in the March for Life v. Burwell case that permanently forbids the Obama administration from enforcing its contraceptive mandate against the March for Life Education and Defense Fund or its employees.

It is the first order granted in favor of an organization opposed to the mandate for pro-life reasons based upon moral convictions rather than religion, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented the March for Life in the case.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the Obama administration cannot force the March for Life or its employees to act contrary to their personal pro-life beliefs, drawing from the very exemption put forth by the administration.

"If the purpose of the religious employer exemption is, as HHS states, to respect the anti-abortifacient tenets of an employment relationship," the Court said, "then it makes no rational sense—indeed, no sense whatsoever to deny March for Life that same respect."

"Pro-life organizations should not be forced into betraying the very values they were established to advance," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said in a statement. "This is especially true of March for Life, which was founded to uphold life, not to assist in taking it. The government has no right to demand that organizations provide health insurance plan options that explicitly contradict their mission."

The leader of the annual pro-life march in the nation's capital praised the decision.

Read more here.