As some of you may know, the Executive branch has provided two types of religious accommodations to nonprofit employers that object to the HHS Preventive Heath Services Rule:
First, some such employers--primarily, churches and their auxiliaries--are exempt altogether from the requirement that they include contraceptive coverage if they offer a health-insurance plan to their employees. The women who work for such churches thus are virtually the only women in the United States who will not be afforded this new national benefit, which I described in further detail in this post. The government's explanation for this exemption is, in effect, that because such employers typically can and do prefer to hire employees who are coreligionists who can be assumed to share the churches' religious commitments, such employees are less likely to wish to purchase birth control: "[H]ouses of worship and their integrated auxiliaries that object to contraceptive coverage on religious grounds are more likely than other employers to employ people of the same faith who share the same objection, and who would therefore be less likely than other people to use contraceptive services even if such services were covered under their plan." 78 Fed. Reg. 39,874 (July 2, 2013).