Religious Exemption from Reproductive Health Care Insurance Mandate Can't Be Limited to Groups "Whose Purpose is the Inculcation of Religious Values"

From Oregon Right to Life v. O’Day, decided yesterday by Judge Mustafa Kasubhai (D. Ore.):

Oregon Right to Life … has one mission: to advocate for pro-life positions based on Judeo-Christian values. This singularly focused nonprofit, by operation of Oregon law, and in particular the religious exemption available to lawfully avoid compliance with this law, would [be forced] to purchase health insurance for its employees that would cover abortions and abortifacients—the very things the nonprofit exists to oppose on religious grounds. The Supreme Court, as this Opinion explains, has made clear that a nonprofit in Plaintiff’s position must prevail on its as-applied challenge to the “religious employer” exemption….

The Oregon Legislature enacted RHEA to “ensure[] that Oregonians have access to comprehensive reproductive health care” including abortion and contraceptives, regardless of their income or insurance coverage. RHEA requires all health benefit plans in Oregon to “provide coverage” for abortion and “any contraceptive drug, device or product approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.” Further, a health benefit plan “may not infringe upon an enrollee’s choice of contraceptive drug, device or product and may not require prior authorization.

RHEA exempted (among other things) “religious employers” “whose purpose is the inculcation of religious values,” but Oregon Right to Life wasn’t covered because its “purpose is prolife advocacy, not inculcating religious values, and [because Plaintiff] doesn’t primarily serve persons sharing its religious tenets.” The court held that limiting the religious exemption this way involved unconstitutional discrimination among religious objectors:

In Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Indus. Rev. Comm’n (2025), a Catholic church-controlled non-profit social services organization brought an Establishment Clause claim after Wisconsin denied it a religious exemption from the state’s unemployment compensation system. The exemption applied to non-profits operated by churches if they were “operated primarily for religious purposes.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court found that Catholic Charities was not eligible for the exemption, interpreting “operated primarily for religious purposes” to require that the religious organization proselytize or limit its services to those who shared its beliefs to qualify for the exemption. The non-profit did not qualify because, consistent with its religious beliefs, it did not limit its services to fellow Catholics or use its charitable work to proselytize.

The non-profit appealed the denial, and the United States Supreme Court reversed … because the exemption “explicitly differentiat[ed] between religions based on theological practices,” creating a denominational preference for religions that proselytize or serve only co-religionists that “facially favors some denominations over others.” …

Both Wisconsin’s exemption in that case and Oregon’s here condition eligibility on serving only co-religionists. The exemptions require that the organization inculcate (teach) or proselytize (convert others to) their religious views. Just as these requirements led the Supreme Court to hold that Wisconsin’s exemption “facially differentiates among religions based on theological choices,” they signal that RHEA’s religious employer exemption also runs afoul of the neutrality principle of the First Amendment….

For more on the Catholic Charities precedent, see this post.

James Bopp, Joseph Maughon, and Richard Coleson (Bopp Law Firm) and Shawn Lindsay represent plaintiff.

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