U.S. District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett ruled Tuesday that an Obama-era mandate requiring health care providers, including universities, to provide abortion services violated the religious rights of Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday. The ruling comes after the two universities filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2013, alleging the mandate was unconstitutional and violated their freedom of religion rights, according to the report. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represented the Christian universities in the suit. “Given our conviction that life begins at conception and our commitment to the sanctity of life, we find the mandate to provide our faculty, staff and students with insurance that provides access to abortion-inducing prescriptions unacceptable,” Cornerstone President Joseph Stowell wrote in a letter to the university at the time of the lawsuit.
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