LOS ANGELES – Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) filed a complaint on Friday with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of seven Loyola Marymount University employees who argue that California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has violated federal law by mandating insurance coverage of elective abortions.

In August, the DMHC mandated that Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara University cover elective abortion as a “medically necessary” procedure, a decision that will impact all non self-insured California organizations.

Soon after the decision, The Cardinal Newman Society joined with ADF and LLDF in a letter warning the California agency that the state may lose federal funds due to its mandate. The letter cited the Weldon Amendment, which prohibits federal funds to states that discriminate on the basis that a health care entity “does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer abortions.”

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The present complaint from Loyola Marymount employees, in addition to warning about the violation of federal law, states that the employees “do not want a plan covering elective abortions,” according to ADF.

“California is violating the federal law that protects employers and employees from being strong-armed into having abortion in their health insurance plans,” ADF senior counsel Casey Mattox said in a press release.

“Forcing a Christian university to facilitate elective abortion is an assault on our most fundamental American freedoms,” Mattox reportedly said. He argued that California has the simple choice to either stop mandating that these universities cover abortion in their health plans or “forfeit the tens of billions of dollars it receives.”

Earlier this week, the Newman Society reported that the executive director of the California Catholic Conference said that California’s bishops are “surprised and distressed” by the DMHC mandate.

Authored by CNS Staff
Originally published here by Catholic Education Daily, an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society

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