The Catholic League has joined two lawsuits in an amicus brief. One case deals with abortion; the other with religious discrimination.
The abortion case involves support for the ban on partial-birth abortion and a challenge to the euphemistic language used by the pro-abortion industry. “The language used by the pro-abortion movement to describe partial-birth abortion skews the perception of what the procedure entails and obscures the fact that Congress passed a constitutional law when it passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003,” says the brief. Lead counsel in this case is being provided by the Thomas More Law Center; the case is Gonzalez v. Carhart.
The other case is being fought by the Washington, D.C. law firm of Winston & Strawn. At issue is a New York statute that effectively requires that religious charities’ prescription drug plans cover contraceptives. While an exemption is provided for “religious employers,” it is written so narrowly as to render it useless in most instances. The implications for religious liberty are enormous, and that explains why the league is involved.
Both cases are important; we are happy to be party to both lawsuits.
