Sydney Fay
92 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 485
As tensions rise between the right to religious freedom and the rights of LGBTQ persons, a recent challenge to a preventive health service threatens the people’s ability to protect their health. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently held the mandated insurance coverage of pre-exposure prophylaxis (“PrEP”) violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) after plaintiffs claimed providing coverage for PrEP facilitated homosexual and other purported morally objectionable behaviors that violated their religious beliefs. In reality, PrEP is a drug that prevents the contraction of human immunodeficiency virus (“HIV”)—a potentially deadly disease that can infect anyone. As the United States continues to fight the ongoing HIV epidemic, PrEP is essential in stopping the spread of HIV, and it should be treated with such importance by courts. However, with the difficulties adjudicating what exactly is a “substantial burden” on a plaintiff bringing a RFRA complicity claim, courts are ill-prepared to appropriately measure the government interest in mandating coverage for PrEP against the burden on religious objectors. This Note proposes a new framework for courts to apply when addressing RFRA challenges to preventive health services. In applying the framework, this Note additionally argues why the facts of the PrEP challenge do not show a sufficient substantial burden on the plaintiffs’ religious exercise and why the PrEP mandate is necessary in the government’s efforts to stop the spread of HIV. When the Supreme Court reviews the issue of whether the PrEP mandate violates RFRA, the claim should fail because of the factually tenuous link between the plaintiff’s complicity claim and the alleged objectionable behavior along with the government’s interest in stopping the spread of a deadly disease.
