Mar 2nd, 2004, 10:01 AM
Catholic Charities in CA forced to insure birth control
Birth-control defeat for Catholic charity
By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 2, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld a state law that requires employers - including Catholic Charities - to insure their workers for contraceptives if they provide coverage for other prescription drugs.
In a case that has been viewed as an important test for about 20 such laws across the country, the court ruled 6-1 that the Women's Contraception Equity Act is constitutional because it is narrowly tailored to eradicate a severe form of bias against women. Lower courts had ruled the same way.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer hailed the decision, saying the law, defended by his office in court, provides equality for women under health and disability insurance plans that haven't hesitated to cover Viagra for men.
Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote that "evidence before the Legislature showed that women during their reproductive years spent as much as 68 percent more than men in out-of-pocket health-care costs, due in part to the cost of prescription contraceptives and the various costs of unintended pregnancies, including health risks, premature deliveries and increased neonatal care."
Werdegar's majority opinion listed a string of precedents in which the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts have refused to carve exemptions for religious objectors into laws advancing critical governmental objectives.
Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be considered. He called the decision "a sad moment for people who want to be partners with the state and yet be faithful to their religious views."
The Catholic Church views contraception as a sin. Catholic Charities, the church's social welfare arm, claims its religious rights are violated by the 4-year-old statute that's seen by proponents as a model for accommodating religious values, health-care concerns and the rights of women to make their own birth control decisions. The law exempts churches as well as nonprofits whose mission is religious and whose staff and clientele share the organization's religious tenets.
The test case was filed by Catholic Charities of Sacramento. The decision covers Catholic Charities organizations throughout California, their 4,100 employees, who include many non-Catholics, and other primarily secular enterprises such as church-affiliated hospitals.
The court's sole dissenter was Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who said the ruling could leave women worse off. In order to comply with the statute, her dissenting opinion said, religiously affiliated employers who are serious about their objections to contraception could drop all prescription drug coverage.
The majority opinion said Catholic Charities could give employees raises to buy their own insurance.
Dolejsi said Catholic Charities doesn't want to drop coverage. He said self-insurance, free from state insurance regulations, was a possible option.
But several insurance industry experts said there may be no way for Catholic Charities to maintain drug coverage for its employees without paying for birth control.
Federal laws against workplace discrimination prohibit an employer from excluding contraceptives, said Judy Applebaum, legal director of the National Women's Law Center.
Nor could Catholic Charities employees buy coverage on their own, because drug-only plans are not sold in California, said Alina Salganicoff, director of women's health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Carol Hogan, communications director for the California Catholic Conference, said Catholic Charities affiliates in Sacramento and some other locations have been covering contraceptives "under duress" during the litigation because their insurers have complied with the statute.
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