Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Geneva's Case - Geneva College
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Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Geneva's Case

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The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to weigh in on the Obama administration’s abortion-pill mandate and its “accommodation” for some non-profit organizations. Geneva College, along with four Christian universities in Oklahoma, asked the high court to review appeals court decisions that upheld the mandate in Geneva College v. Burwell and Southern Nazarene University v. Burwell. The cases are two of seven similar cases that the Supreme Court agreed to review, with an expected hearing date of March, 2016.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear the case, which came in November of 2015, is the culmination of the federal lawsuit Geneva filed in February of 2012, Geneva College v. Sebelius. That lawsuit argued that the Obama administration’s mandate requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs to employees and students regardless of religious or moral convictions violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the First and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Acting in a manner consistent with its deeply held Christian beliefs, Geneva continues to pursue legal action against the mandate in an effort to protect the college and other religious organizations from government mandates that require acting against religious or moral convictions.

“When Christ and country conflict, Geneva chooses Christ,” said Dr. William Edgar, Geneva’s interim president and former member of its Board of Trustees. “When this priority meant disregarding federal law to aid escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, then Geneva helped the escaped slave. Recently, this meant that Geneva had to file a lawsuit against the federal government over its healthcare law instead of being responsible for ending life once it had been conceived by providing an abortifacient medication. Now, we are taking our concern for protection of religious freedom—and the protection of life—to the nation’s highest court. We pray that God will be glorified through the efforts of everyone involved.” 

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Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent Geneva, as well as Southern Nazarene University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Baptist University and Mid-America Christian University. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.  “The government has no legitimate basis for forcing faith-based organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees or students,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “These Christian colleges simply want to abide by the very faith they espouse and teach. They should not be forced to choose between giving up their fundamental freedoms and paying financial penalties. That is not a choice Americans should have to face.”

“We look forward to the argument before the Supreme Court, which we hope will reverse the appeals courts’ rulings and ensure that people of faith are not punished for making decisions consistent with that faith,” added ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman.

ADF attorneys and allied attorneys represented Conestoga Wood Specialties and its owners in their victory against the abortion-pill mandate at the U.S. Supreme Court last year. While that case addressed the mandate as it applies to for-profit family-run businesses, these cases pertain to the mandate as applied to non-profit organizations. Although the administration argues that executing and submitting a so-called “accommodation” form insulates religious nonprofits from providing abortifacients, ADF attorneys explain that is not the case.

The form directly involves the Christian colleges in providing abortifacients in multiple ways by, for example, (1) altering their health plans to allow for the provision of such drugs or devices, (2) requiring them to notify or identify to the government who their insurers or Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) are so that they can provide the drugs or devices on the colleges’ behalf, (3) officially authorizing their TPA as a plan and claims administrator solely for the purpose of providing the items, and (4) requiring them to identify and contract with a TPA that is willing to provide the drugs and devices to which they religiously object.

As the reply brief filed last month in the Southern Nazarene University case explained, “the government cannot answer one simple yet vital question: If it is true that religious nonprofits are totally removed from providing abortifacient contraceptives, why force them to participate in the accommodation scheme…? The answer is that the so-called accommodation does not isolate the Universities from the provision of abortifacients at all.”

Geneva College invites students to step forward with an affordable education. Offering nearly 40 undergraduate majorsAdult Degree Programs with fully online and campus-based options, and high-demand advanced graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top 10 Best Value College in the Northeast, with one of the Top 100 Engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the inerrancy of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God’s Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today’s world.

Nov 19, 2015