The rule is arbitrary ‘because the Agencies identified a problem … and then proposed a solution that is not rationally connected,’ the judge said.
A federal judge on Aug. 13 vacated a rule that lets employers with religious objections opt out of an Affordable Care Act requirement that states that the employers’ insurance should cover abortion and contraceptives.
Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said the rule, and a similar rule relating to moral objections, both of which were put into place in 2018 during the first Trump administration, were arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of federal law.
Beetlestone analyzed the rationale for enacting the rules, including a reliance on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—a law that bars the government from “substantially [burdening] a person’s exercise of religion” unless certain exceptions are met—and concluded that it did not support the rule.
“The Rule is not arbitrary and capricious because it draws imprecise lines,” the judge said in a 55-page decision. “It is arbitrary and capricious because the Agencies identified a problem (RFRA violations) and then proposed a solution that is not rationally connected to solving that problem (exempting organizations whose compliance with the Accommodation posed no potential conflict with RFRA to begin with).”
She ruled against the federal government and in favor of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which sued over the rules, and vacated them.
The White House declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General told The Epoch Times in an email: “We are gratified that a federal court has agreed with us that the Trump Administration violated the law by exempting certain entities from the requirement to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives.”
Lawyers for Little Sisters of the Poor—a Catholic organization that is a defendant-intervenor in the case—decried the decision.
“The district court blessed an out-of-control effort by Pennsylvania and New Jersey to attack the Little Sisters and religious liberty,” Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, a nonprofit, public interest legal institute, said in a statement.
“It’s bad enough that the district court issued a nationwide ruling invalidating federal religious conscience rules.
