(CN) — A Ninth Circuit panel grilled a Washington state church on Wednesday on in its efforts to seek relief from a state law requiring that insurance providers offer abortion access in health plans that offer maternity coverage.
The Cedar Park Assembly of God in Kirkland, Washington, told the three-judge panel that it has been forced to offer abortion coverage to its employees for the last five years, ever since the state passed SB 2619.
“Before SB 6219 took effect, Kaiser and other carriers offered abortion-free plans to Cedar Park and others; after SB 6219, it stopped,” the church’s attorney, Rory Gray with Alliance Defending Freedom, told the court. “The reason is clear: because the law has very severe penalties.”
Cedar Park told the court it believes that facilitating abortion in any way — even by offering coverage for the medical procedure that may never be used by its employees — is sinful and immoral.
Though the church conceded that abortion-free health plans do exist in the state, the church said it is ineligible for the ones that are offered due to size and county restrictions. Cedar Park’s current health plan with Kaiser Permanente includes abortion and contraceptive medication coverage, which it said violates its religious beliefs against facilitating abortion in any way.
U.S. Circuit Judge Susan Graber, appointed by Bill Clinton, asked about whether it takes issue with indirect ways the church may be facilitating employee actions that don’t align with the church’s values — like whether it was concerned about the way its employees spent their salaries.
“When you pay your employees wages, they can buy whatever they want with that, so whether you have a health plan or not, one of your employees could obtain an abortion,” Graber, a Bill Clinton appointee, said.
“The only difference between someone who has no health plan and goes and gets an abortion and someone who has a no-abortion plan and goes and gets one is the price,” she added. “It seems to me your interest, really, is making sure the price is high.”
The church countered that merely providing an option for abortion services in its health plan violated its belief and said its objection to the law had nothing to do with cost.
U.S. Circuit Court Judge Lucy Koh, appointed by President Joseph Biden, questioned the church about how its beliefs were violated by the health plan coverage.
“The distinction here is you conceded that an employee using their Cedar Park wages to pay for an abortion does not cause Cedar Park to facilitate an abortion,” Koh said. “How do we distinguish using the card versus using Cedar Park’s salary?”
The state argued that the church’s actual issue was with the insurance providers, not the state.
“Under Washington law, Cedar Park is not required to pay for access to abortion or contraceptives to which it objects,” Tera Heintz, Washington assistant attorney general, said. “There is nothing preventing Kaiser or any other insurance companies from offering such a policy to Cedar Park.”
The state said the church was objecting to actions taken by a third party and accused the church of failing to properly ask insurance providers for plans that exclude abortion coverage.
“There is not one shred of evidence that if this court would take a drastic step of striking down a state law would make any change to the facts on the ground,” Heintz said.
Cedar Park first sued the state insurance commissioner and Governor Jay Inslee in 2019 over claims that the state acted in concert with Planned Parenthood. A federal court initially agreed with the state that the church lacked standing to sue, but the Ninth Circuit overturned that conclusion in 2021 because the church’s health insurer stopped offering a plan with abortion coverage restrictions after the law was passed.
In July 2023, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the church’s argument that the law violated its First Amendment right to freely practice its religious beliefs. The church appealed, and the state cross-appealed.
The court did not indicate when it would rule.
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