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The Obama administration is facing a subpoena from the Catholic archdiocese of New York seeking White House papers for its lawsuit challenging the government’s health insurance mandate.
In an attempt to block the archdiocese, the administration is arguing that the request for documents from President Barack Obama and his senior advisers would be “exceptionally burdensome” to fulfil and inappropriate except in extraordinary circumstances.
The government is requiring employers to include coverage of contraceptives, abortion drugs and sterilisation procedures in staff health insurance plans.
Although there are some exceptions for religious employers, the New York archdiocese says it would incur nearly $NZ237 million each year in penalties for refusing to comply.
In December, a US District Court judge ruled that the lawsuit filed by the archdiocese and two other Catholic entities can move forward, despite the administration’s argument that it was premature.
But in January, a US District Court judge in Washington threw out a related challenge to the birth-control mandate filed by the Archdiocese of Washington and four other Catholic non-profit groups, ruling it was too early to hear the lawsuit.
At least 43 Catholic organisations, including the University of Notre Dame and the Catholic University of America, filed lawsuits in 2012 in courts across the country, arguing that the mandate violates the freedom of religion guaranteed in the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
Sixteen companies whose owners have moral objections to the mandate have been granted a temporary injunction while their lawsuits are pending, according to the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing many of those who have sued over the mandate.
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Image: The Guardian
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