CALIFORNIA CHURCHES IN COURT TODAY ON ABORTION MANDATE: A trio of California congregations represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) present oral arguments today in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They will ask the court to declare unconstitutional the state’s regulation requiring their employee health insurance to pay for abortions.

Included in the evidence to be discussed are a series of 2014 emails in which Planned Parenthood specifically lobbied state regulators not to exempt churches from the abortion coverage mandate.

“We are asking the 9th Circuit to invalidate this unconstitutional mandate because California officials are required to follow the law and legal precedent, not the dictates of groups that have an axe to grind against religious organizations that don’t share their views on abortion,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus.