Nuns Ask High Court to Overturn HHS Mandate Ruling

A group of Colorado nuns is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling forcing them to comply with Obamacare's contraception mandate.

In its ruling last week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said the mandate accommodates religious nonprofits by letting them seek an exemption. The court also noted that employees can get contraception from a third party.

But attorneys for the Little Sisters of the Poor and four Oklahoma Christian colleges say arranging for someone else to provide contraceptives amounts to a permission slip.

The nuns "consider it immoral to help the government distribute these drugs," Mark L. Rienzi, with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said.

"The courts have been saying that it is fine for the government to force these ministries to comply with the mandate because the mandate works differently for religious non-profits," Rienzi told The National Review.

"The judges are saying that the religious groups should no longer feel complicit once they sign documents to let other people use their healthcare plans to distribute these products for them, and therefore the government can force them to violate their religion," he said.