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Geneva College lawsuit against federal health-care act adds plaintiffs
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A lawsuit by Geneva College seeking to overturn part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was broadened late Thursday to include private business people who do not want to offer insurance plans that cover morning after drugs and other pregnancy stopping treatments.
Geneva, a Christian school, sued in February with the help of the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund because it said the health-care act would compel it to pay for abortion-causing drugs.
Attorneys for ADF have now added as plaintiffs Wayne L. Helper and Carrie E. Kolesar, father-daughter co-owners of the Cranberry-based Seneca Hardwood Lumber Co. and a related sawmill company.
The amended complaint filed Thursday said the family's members are practicing Catholics and the insurance offered to employees of their companies "has for multiple years omitted abortifacients, contraception, sterilization, and related education and counseling."
It said the health-care law would force them "to pay for and otherwise facilitate the use of morally objectionable drugs, devices" and counseling.
In previous court filings in the case, the Department of Justice asked U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that enforcement of the mandate wouldn't start until 2014, and provisions are in the works that might accommodate the concerns of religious organizations.
The ADF filed a motion today to dismiss as moot the Department of Justice's effort to have the case thrown out.
First Published June 1, 2012 9:55 am
