ETBU, HBU Get Pass on Part of Obamacare

HOUSTON � Two Texas Baptist Universities win a battle in court that allows them to opt out of part of Obamacare. A Houston federal court has ruled that East Texas and Houston Baptist universities do not have to offer employees coverage that would allow them to buy drugs or devices that Eric Rassbach with the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty says cause abortion. He says it�s important for both sides to be respected. The pills and devices in question include the morning after, or �plan B,� pill and a certain type of IUD.

“The government doesn’t have the right to decide what religious beliefs are legitimate and which ones aren’t,” said Rassbach, Deputy General Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and lead attorney for East Texas Baptist and Houston Baptist Universities. “In its careful opinion, the Court recognized that the government was trying to move across that forbidden line, and said “No further!”

“The government has enforced the health care reform law very unevenly, handing out exemptions to those it sees as its allies,” stated Rassbach. “Perhaps the worst part of the government’s approach is that it seems to have decided that religious institutions are the only ones not to get an exemption.”