Chelsea Langston Bombino, July 8, 2016

In late June, the ACLU of Northern California brought suit against the federal government (the Department of Health and Human Services or HHS), claiming that the government is violating federal law by funding faith-based organizations to provide care for young women because the government is allowing some FBOs to “to refuse on religious grounds to provide information about, access to, or referrals for contraception and abortion, even if the young person in their care has been raped.” The ACLU claims that many young migrant girls crossing the border from Mexico have been sexually assaulted and have a legal right to access abortion through their U.S-based care providers.

While the ACLU considers abortion reproductive care, Catholic teaching defines such care very differently. As a recent article by the National Catholic Register stated: “When it comes to the healing of sexual trauma…the standard of care for the Catholic physician is not to add to the violence done to the victim by taking the life of her baby, who is also innocent.”

The HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has long partnered with religious organizations such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its sub-grantees to provide much needed care to vulnerable migrants. Yet the ACLU’s lawsuit seeks to end the government’s long and successful partnership with faith-based agencies serving migrants, particularly minors crossing the border, by cutting off their HHS grants, punishing migrants because not everyone in America conforms to the ACLU’s views.

The ACLU states that in 2014 alone, the federal government approved the USCCB for almost 10 million dollars in grants to serve migrants. It is important to note, these funds are not awarded because the federal government has a preference for Catholic institutions, but simply because the USCCB agency is providing some of the best services in the marketplace. According to the USCCB’s Migration and Resettlement Services (MRS) website, MRS resettles a full 30% of the 50,000-75,000 refugees that come into the United States each year.

The ACLU claims that the government has violated the Establishment Clause by allowing faith-based organizations to be true to their religious identity and opt out of providing information or referrals for abortions or contraception. Yet what the ACLU calls “underwriting religious restrictions on vital government-funded services,” is actually the provision of an equal playing field upon which faith-based organizations can compete for government grants without having to shed their religious identity.

This notion of allowing faith-based organizations an equal opportunity with secular organizations to access government partnerships is a guiding principle of the faith-based initiative that President Obama, following President Bush, has maintained.

With respect to the detention of unaccompanied minors at the border, the ORR is required to place these migrants with private ORR-funded service providers within 72 hours of their arrival. According to the lawsuit, the religious service providers include USCCB sub-grantees Bethany Christian Services (MI) and Catholic Charities in Fort Worth, Houston, and San Jose, among others. These organizations do not conceal their policies concerning abortion. In fact, the lawsuit freely acknowledges that the USCCB has been “clear that they refuse to provide access” to contraceptive and abortion services because of their deeply held religious belief and identity.

Although these faith-based providers object to such services on religious grounds, the ACLU even stipulates in their lawsuit that USCCB sub-grantees have nonetheless notified the government about young women in their care who asked for abortion services and requested these young women be transferred to other providers. As an article in the National Catholic Register explains: “The standard operating procedure of the USCCB’s Office of Migration and Refugee Services, which oversees the implementation of a grant, is to inform the HHS that it has received a request for an abortion that it cannot fulfill. The HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement then places the young woman with a partner that will facilitate her request for abortion.”

The ACLU’s attempt to exclude faith organizations from government partnerships and funding would hurt the tens of thousands of refugees and migrants who receive high-quality services from these religious service providers each year. If the ACLU’s lawsuit succeeds, it won’t just be a loss for the government, which will lose one of its most valuable and high-quality partners in serving vulnerable people, it will be a loss for the unaccompanied minors themselves who deserve to be served by providers which have proven to offer the best services through the competitive grant process.

Moreover, it will be a loss for the First Amendment. Freedom to exercise religion, after all, can’t and shouldn’t be limited to the freedom of individuals to worship, but should and does extend to the freedom of individuals and institutions alike to embody their faith through service in the public square. As Eric Rassbach, a senior attorney for the Becket Fund told the National Catholic Register: “The conflict is not coming over whether someone can go to Mass; it’s over whether they can go out and serve while still being Catholic.” We are in a political moment where there is a much talk about freedom of identity- whether it be sexual, racial, or ethnic identity.

In a time when individual identity is so valued, it is also important that institutional religious identities be allowed to flourish and participate on a level playing field in the public square.