Today, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its highly anticipated decisions in two cases that were brought by for-profit companies arguing that requiring them to include contraception in their employees’ health plan violates their religious liberty rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

In an unprecedented decision, the Court ruled that employers can use their religious beliefs to deny their employees a benefit that they are guaranteed by law to receive. In response to this decision, Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of Equality Federation, released the following statement:

“We are dismayed that the Court today gave employers the right to decide – based on the employers’ religious beliefs – whether women have access to affordable birth control and what type and in what circumstances.

We all have the right to our religious beliefs, but that should not include the right to impose your beliefs on others. At the Federation, we believe the Supreme Court ruled wrongly in this case."