A major talking point in the Church’s opposition to the contraception mandate has been that the mandate goes beyond requiring employers to cover contraception and requires them to pay for products that, in the Church’s view, amount to abortion.  For example, the Notre Dame complaint (.pdf) repeatedly claims that the mandate requires Notre Dame “to provide, or facilitate the provision of, abortion-inducing drugs.” (see, e.g., para. 87, 90, 107, 109, 125, 140, 146, 147, 149, 156…and many more)  The complaint asserts that, as a matter of fact, Plan B “operates by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the womb.”  Count IX of the Notre Dame complaint claims that the mandate is illegal precisely because it violates the APA’s commitment not to require employers to cover abortion services.  When the complaint lists the services to which it objects, it routinely uses the following formulation:  ”abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives.”

Why this emphasis on abortion in a complaint to block the contraception mandate?  The question is made a little more urgent by today’s article in the New York Times reporting that the weight of scientific evidence is decidedly against the claim pressed by the Notre Dame complaint (and many Catholic opponents of the mandate) that Plan B “operates by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the womb.”   Read the rest of this entry »