Catholic Nonprofits Must Provide Contraception, Court Rules

A federal appeals court has ruled that Catholic nonprofits must provide contraception: a mandate included in Obamacare.

The decision comes after a Catholic church in Georgia and its affilliated non-profit organizations argued that the mandate violates their religious freedom and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court rejected the challenge 2-1, but is delaying implementing the rule.

"Congress included the contraceptive mandate in the ACA to improve women's health and public health generally. There is no evidence whatsoever that the mandate was enacted in an attempt to restrict religious exercise," Circuit Judge Jill Pryor wrote in the majority opinion.

But the dissenting Circuit Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote this was an effort to "force them to participate in a complicated regulatory scheme."

"Doing so, these parties sincerely believe, would make them complicit in violating the sanctity of human life," Tjoflat wrote.

The nonprofits are waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the issue in similiar cases later this month.