The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity that serves poor elderly citizens both in the United States and around the world, is battling in court to preserve the humble sisters’ rights of conscience against efforts of government coercion. Secular state governments, whose highest moral value appears to be ensuring as many babies are prevented or aborted as possible, seek to compel these feisty nuns to provide birth control (including the week-after pill) as part of their healthcare services. This attack on conscience is unconscionable.
Lawyers, Nuns, and Money
At issue is federal mandates under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to provide contraceptive services through all healthcare plans. No religious exemption was included in the original legislation, prompting the Little Sisters of the Poor to file suit. Their litigation success required the government to accommodate genuine religious convictions, prompting a 2017 rule change that Pennsylvania and New Jersey have challenged as arbitrary and capricious. The two states won a district court injunction in 2025 against allowing the religious exemption. The Little Sisters of the Poor appealed: Arguments were heard in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on July 7.
Even for those who falsely imagine that Christianity has been the scourge of humanity (it hasn’t – Catholic faith in western societies promulgated hospitals, humane prisons, and universities for the poor), a gritty group of nuns who just want to help impoverished elderly citizens around the world make a pretty sympathetic set of plaintiffs. Ironically, these Lord-loving ladies have a faith-driven resolve that rivals the staunchest feminist.
A defiant Mother Loraine Marie Maguire sums up the order’s position well:
“For nearly 200 years we have welcomed the elderly poor and dying into our homes, and with the population of seniors rapidly growing we cannot allow a government lawsuit to stop us from carrying out our mission. Pennsylvania and New Jersey can keep fighting if they want. All we want is to keep serving.”
Feminists by Long Habit
These are not women who flinch at government intimidation or restrictions of their passionate faith. The order was founded in France in 1839 to serve the needs of the elderly poor. In addition to the accustomed Catholic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience (to the Holy Church, not secular jurists waging war on Christian conscience), the organization’s thousands of nuns vow to embrace and advance hospitality. The US activities of the order began in 1868 and now oversee nearly 30 group homes in the country where the elderly poor are served. Internationally, the group serves some 13,000 elderly poor people in 31 countries.
At first blush, it seems odd that the federal government would be concerned about requiring nuns ministering to the health needs of geriatric patients to include contraceptives in their duties. But the contraceptives aren’t for the old folks – they are for Little Sisters of the Poor staff.
Faced with the Little Sisters’ 2011 challenge to the conscience-infringing shortcomings of the ACA, the Obama administration in 2013 attempted a rule fix that exempted the nuns but required them to include a third-party administrator to provide contraceptive coverage directly to the employees. Unsurprisingly, this was unacceptable to the Little Sisters of the Poor as “facilitating” the termination of a sacred human life, so they promptly sued – and won – yet again.
Obama, Biden, and Trump (Oh My!)
In addition to the Obama administration, both the Biden and Trump administrations agreed that employers like the Little Sisters should receive a religious exemption. The goal is to balance religious freedom with reasonable healthcare, which was accomplished under the first Trump administration in 2017. This was challenged, and it reached the US Supreme Court in 2020, where a 7-2 majority ruled in Poor v. Pennsylvania that the Trump administration correctly exercised its authority to create legal and moral exemptions under the ACA.
But Pennsylvania and New Jersey filed suit to challenge the rule in defiance of the SCOTUS decision. The states alleged (and a federal district court agreed) that the Trump rule violated the Administrative Procedures Act and was “arbitrary and capricious.” The states argue that the rule permits the noble nuns to deprive women of services necessary to prevent unwanted pregnancies, of which half end in publicly subsidized abortions.
This is an interesting argument that might itself be labeled arbitrary and capricious. For one thing, legal counsel for the Little Sisters of the Poor points out that the states have not adduced a single complaint by anyone against the order for its policy, suggesting the states are conjuring specious paper tiger harms to women seeking abortions to justify harming the religious liberty of pious nuns. The states are overtly seeking to elevate an economic argument – monetary burdens of abortions – to justify violations of a fundamental liberty to freedom of faith. This is a constitutional nonstarter.
Materialism vs Faith
If money is the states’ issue, what of the benefits to its citizens of the money expended by the order in caring for the elderly poor? What of the economic expectation of Catholic donors that their contributions will not be used to support a practice their faith deems abhorrent? What about the massive fines that will be inflicted against the work of this charity if they refuse to comply – the current situation under the stay issued by the partisan Pennsylvania federal district court? That money will be drained away from needy elderly for state coffers, further undermining philanthropic support for the order’s holy mission. Penalizing the faithful to enhance government cash flow is a dangerous moral hazard.
For years, the secular US monolith that oppresses Christians while advancing Islam has waved off claims of anti-Christian bias with gaslighting dismissals. Yet the evidence is clear that the far-left, TDS-fueled crusade Americans are witnessing against these nuns marginalizes Catholics and is far out of balance with the clear meaning and purpose of the First Amendment. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are not just abridging the fundamental liberties of a noble group of devoted nuns. They are advancing a state secularist religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. When Obama and Biden agreed with Trump, but the far left is pushing an extremely toxic and blatantly unconstitutional anti-nun lawfare, clearly an important liberty Rubicon has been crossed.
That’s why the Little Sisters of the Poor will win their legal (and spiritual) battle in any US court that understands and upholds the US Constitution. This will likely be seen in the pending Third Circuit opinion in this case, and possibly (if either party appeals) in another trip to SCOTUS for clarification.
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