Zubik v. Burwell is the Supreme Court’s name for the set of cases more often identified with the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order that is also a party to the case. I filed an amicus brief in Zubik on behalf of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. I had never before filed a brief in support of the government in a case about the free exercise of religion.
The facts in this case, which will be argued Wednesday, are complicated. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance plans to cover contraception without imposing deductibles or requiring co-payments. But Catholic institutions object to providing contraception, and many conservatives of other faiths object to providing emergency contraception, which they plausibly view as sometimes causing very early abortions.
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