In Cedar Park Assembly of God of Kirkland, Washington v. Kreidler, (9th Cir., March 6, 2025), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision held that a church which opposes abortion and some forms of contraception lacks standing to challenge Washington's Reproductive Parity Act which requires health insurance carriers to provide coverage for contraceptives and abortions. A second state statute allows insurance companies to offer employee plans that accommodate a church's religious objections, so long as employees can separately access coverage for such services from the insurer. However, plaintiff church has been unable to find a plan that accommodates its objections. The court said in part:
Nothing in the challenged law prevents any insurance company ... from offering Plaintiff a health plan that excludes direct coverage for abortion services. Therefore, an insurance company’s independent business decision not to offer such a plan is not traceable to the Parity Act....
Nothing in the record suggests that Plaintiff’s alleged injury would be redressed if we struck down the Parity Act....
Plaintiff contends, in the alternative, that an employer purchasing a no-abortion plan in Washington still “indirectly facilitates” the provision of abortion services to its employees. Plaintiff relies on but-for reasoning. As noted above, under the conscientious-objection statute, employees can obtain coverage for abortion services through their insurance carrier, whether or not the employer has a religious objection.... So, Plaintiff’s argument goes, employees receive coverage that they would not have but for the existence of the health plan provided by their employer, even if the employer’s plan does not itself provide that coverage.... We reject this theory as well. The general disapproval of the actions that others might decide to take does not create standing, even when some tenuous connection may exist between the disapproving plaintiff and the offense-causing action.
Judge Callahan filed a dissenting opinion. She agreed with plaintiff's "facilitation" argument. She added in part:
Cedar Park also has standing because the Parity Act caused Kaiser Permanente to stop providing a health plan that excludes abortion coverage and the church cannot procure a comparable replacement.