Wed Aug 31, 2022 – 3:38 pm EDT
CALIFORNIA (LifeSiteNews) – A U.S. district court ruled Thursday that California must exempt employers such as churches from paying for abortions in their health insurance plans.
Three California churches sued the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) after it sent letters in 2014 to private health insurers “directing them to remove any limitations on … abortion care services from the health care coverage they offered to various employers.”
DMHC sent the letters after Planned Parenthood asked the state to “fix” such exemptions “to ensure that employers cannot deny women coverage of abortion services,” according to emails shared by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys.
At least two health insurers mistakenly believed they could not provide religious exemptions to churches to effectively preclude abortion coverage, because the 2014 letters failed to mention that California law allowed individual insurance plans to request such an exemption.
Thus, plaintiff churches Foothill Church, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, and the Shepherd of the Hills Church sued, being “under the impression that they could not secure coverage that comported with their religious beliefs,” according to the ruling issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
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