Hobby Lobby Follow-up Returns to Lower Courts

The perils of an eight-member Supreme Court were thrown into sharp relief this month when the court sent Zubik v. Burwell back to the circuit courts. In March, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Zubik, a set of consolidated cases that pose a looming threat to women’s access to reproductive health care. Following on the heels of 2014’s disappointing Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision, some religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations filed suit objecting to contraceptive coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act.

Although the Affordable Care Act included an AAUW-supported accommodation for religiously affiliated nonprofits that objected to offering contraceptive care on religious grounds, some of these nonprofits claimed that the accommodation does not go far enough. Those nonprofits are the plaintiffs in Zubik.

Most, but not all, circuit courts had ruled that the accommodation went far enough to protect the plaintiffs’ religious liberty while still ensuring women’s access to contraception. Rather than resolving the circuit split or making a final decision, the Supreme Court sent all the cases back to the circuit courts, ordering the parties to consider alternatives that could ensure coverage while accommodating the challengers’ arguments. While this is tentative good news for reproductive rights supporters, it does not fully resolve the issue, and the Supreme Court will likely have to hear the cases again after a new justice is appointed. Sign the AAUW petition now to urge the U.S. Senate to fulfill its constitutional obligation to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee.