Injunction Blocks Obamacare Contraception Mandate

The plaintiff will be exempt while the lawsuit moves forward

On Wednesday a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the first appellate court order blocking the birth control benefit in Obamacare as anti-choice activists do their best to fast-track the issue for Supreme Court review.

The decision came from an appeal in the case of Frank R. O'Brien and O'Brien Industrial Holdings, a for-profit holding company based in St. Louis that explores, mines and processes refractory and ceramic raw materials around the world. In October, a federal district judge dismissed O'Brien's lawsuit, rejecting "the proposition that requiring indirect financial support of a practice, from which plaintiff himself abstains according to his religious principles, constitutes a substantial burden on plaintiff's religious exercise."