Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

HHS Gives in on Tyndale House Publishers and the Mandate

By Thomas Berg

The government's has voluntarily dismissed its appeal in Tyndale House Publishers' 'suit against the potential-abortifacient parts of the HHS mandate.  The dismissal order is here.  From the news release by Tyndale's lawyers, the Alliance Defending Freedom (congratulations to Matt Bowman and ADF on the win!):

“Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The government dismissed its appeal because it knows how ridiculous it sounds arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer...."

This of course this doesn't presage the administration's position, or the result, in the cases involving general commercial businesses (factories etc.) run by objecting religious individuals.

As to those cases, here is the latest amicus brief I filed on behalf of Bart Stupak and the Democrats for Life, this time in the Sixth Circuit, supporting the rights of commercial businesses and their owners to object to the coverage of abortifacients, on the ground that our tradition of protecting conscience rights regarding abortion is especially expansive and strong.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2013/05/hhs-gives-in-on-tyndale-house-publishers-and-the-mandate.html

Berg, Thomas | Permalink

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This is likely litigation strategy pure and simple. Tyndale is a much more sympathetic plaintiff than Hobby Lobby. From the government's perspective, it is better to let the district court opinion stand rather than establish precedent that is controlling for an entire circuit.