A federal district court dealt another setback to the Little Sisters of the Poor in its effort to be exempt from the federal government’s requirement that its insurance plans cover contraceptives. 

In a ruling on Thursday, the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which sought to challenge two Trump administration religious exemptions to requirements that employer-sponsored health insurance plans cover contraceptives, known as the “Contraceptive Mandate,” or pay hefty fines. The requirement was implemented following the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

An order of Catholic nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor previously enjoyed several legal victories that secured federal exemptions to the rule. In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government should “arrive at an approach going forward that accommodates the petitioners’ religious beliefs.”  In 2018, the Trump administration created an exemption to the mandate. Yet, the group continued to face challenges to the exemption. And in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the exemption. 

New Jersey and Pennsylvania still pursued a lawsuit challenging exemptions, arguing that they violated the Administrative Procedure Act and that such rules were “arbitrary and capricious.”

Judge Wendy Beetlestone, an appointee of President Barack Obama, authored the court’s Wednesday opinion, which found that the exemptions were “arbitrary and capricious” and that the federal government had shown “no adequate justification” for them.

The court vacated the exemptions “in their entirety.”

A regional superior for the Little Sisters of the Poor, Lorraine Marie Maguire, said in a statement, “As Little Sisters of the Poor, we dedicate our lives to caring for the elderly poor until God calls them home. We will continue to fight for the right to carry out our mission without violating our faith, and we pray Pennsylvania and New Jersey will end this needless harassment.”