Contact: Tom Ciesielka, 312-422-1333, tc@tcpr.net

 

KENTWOOD, Mich., Oct. 8, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- Autocam Corporation, the lead supplier of fuel injection parts to Bosch, Delphi, Conti, and Hitachi, has joined the growing number of businesses suing the government over religious freedom violations. The lawsuit, filed on October 8 by the Thomas More Society on behalf of the privately held manufacturer of precision automotive and health components and its owners, is a direct response to the Obamacare Health & Human Services (HHS) mandate requirement that they provide group insurance coverage of abortions, sterilization, and birth control for their employees.

 

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the U.S. Department of Labor, demands injunctive relief for Autocam and its ownership, the John Kennedy family.

 

Autocam founder and CEO John Kennedy operates a progressive and growing company, one that is posting job openings daily on Facebook. Autocam's lawsuit comes as a result of the deeply held religious beliefs practiced by the Kennedy clan, whose Catholicism is in direct conflict with the controversial HHS mandate.

 

Prior to the government's implementation of the mandate, Autocam had specifically designed a health insurance plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan to exclude contraception, sterilization, abortion, and abortifacients. This policy arrangement was in line with the religious beliefs of Autocam's owners and operators. To the extent that this insurance covered these services, it did so only when medically necessary and not for elective purposes.

 

Kennedy, along with his children Paul, John, Margaret, and Thomas Kennedy, embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church, which holds that neither contraception nor abortion are properly understood to constitute medicine, health care, or a means of providing for the well-being of persons, but rather involve the intentional destruction of innocent human life.

 

"Beyond forcing pro-life individuals to pay for President Obama's pro-abortion agenda, the passage of Obamacare has allowed the federal government to insert itself into every aspect of our lives," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, the national public interest law firm representing the plaintiffs in this case. "This cannot be tolerated, and I applaud Autocam and the Kennedys for taking action." He added, "As a federal court ruled in July, no government official may impose such an insupportable burden on American citizens' deeply held religious beliefs without a compelling reason."

 

The Obama Administration has defended forcing private employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion, abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. This has set the stage for a spate of lawsuits by businesses that believe their basic constitutional freedoms are being trampled on. One recent case involves Triune Health Group, a Chicago company lauded as being the best place for women to work in the metro area. Triune hopes for a similar outcome as that received by Colorado-based Hercules Industries. Hercules and the Catholic family that owns and runs it won a federal injunction to suspend the Obama Administration's mandate against that company.

 

The plaintiffs are represented in the suit pro bono by Patrick T. Gillen of the CatholicVote Legal Defense Fund, Thomas Brejcha and Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society (Chicago, IL), and Jason C. Miller, of Miller Johnson in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

 

A copy of the court filing is available here.

 

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