George, Robert, and David have posted on the EEOC’s encroachment on religious liberty in ruling that Belmont Abbey College discriminated against female employees by refusing to cover prescription contraceptives in its health-insurance plan.

Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, comments in the Wall Street Journal that the ruling bodes especially ill because of the health-care reform before us. Reilly’s analysis of the ruling leads him to argue for “very clear exemptions” to certain laws mandating subsidized medical services for religious employers such as a Catholic college and “conscience protections for individual doctors, nurses, pharmacists.” Without these exemptions, he concludes, “federal health care laws and guidelines could severely restrict religious freedom in the U.S.”