Rep. Kelly Encourages Supreme Court to Defend Religious Liberty

Responds to news that high court will hear challenge to Obamacare contraceptive mandate

WASHINGTON — Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) issued the following statement today in response to news that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two challenges to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department’s mandate under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that requires employers to provide employees with insurance coverage for contraceptive services, including birth control pills, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. The cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, will be consolidated for oral argument and likely be heard by the high court next spring.

“I am very heartened to hear today’s news and am hopeful that the Supreme Court will deliver justice to all the organizations and employers whose First Amendment rights have been trampled under Obamacare. The HHS contraceptive mandate remains a hideous element of a disastrous law that the American people never wanted and should not be forced to live with. It is an insult to the two-century tradition of vast bipartisan respect for the right of Americans to obey their individual consciences however their religion commands. Not until this administration’s policies has this sacred right been undermined so severely. I look forward to the Supreme Court defending the First Amendment and ending Obamacare’s assault on religious liberty for good.”

NOTE: Rep. Kelly is a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and a co-sponsor of H.R. 940, the Health Care Conscience Rights Act, which would amend the Affordable Care Act to protect rights of conscience with regard to requirements for coverage of specific items and services.

In February 2012, he co-signed a letter with 153 Members of Congress to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seeking suspension of the health care law’s contraceptive mandate. Rep. Kelly had also sent Secretary Sebelius an earlier letter in September 2011 in which he called for the federal mandate to be rescinded.

Rep. Kelly signed 12 amicus briefs submitted by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) in August 2012 brought by religious organizations challenging the mandate.

###