Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf
Page Number: 48

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LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR SAINTS PETER  
AND PAUL HOME v. PENNSYLVANIA 
ALITO, J., concurring 

quire the converse—that an accommodation of religious be-
lief  be  narrowly  tailored  to  further  a  compelling  interest.  
The latter approach, which is advocated by the States, gets 
RFRA  entirely  backwards.    See  Brief  for  Respondents  45 
(“RFRA could require the religious exemption only if it was 
the least restrictive means of furthering [the Government’s 
compelling  interest]”).    Nothing  in  RFRA  requires  that 
a  violation  be  remedied  by  the  narrowest  permissible 
corrective. 
  Needless to say, the remedy for a RFRA problem cannot 
violate  the  Constitution,  but  the  new  rule  does  not  have 
that effect.  The Court has held that there is a constitutional 
right to purchase and use contraceptives.  Griswold v. Con-
necticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Carey v. Population Services 
Int’l, 431 U. S. 678 (1977).  But the Court has never held 
that there is a constitutional right to free contraceptives. 
  The dissent and the court below suggest that the new rule 
is improper because it imposes burdens on the employees of 
entities that the rule exempts, see post, at 14–17; 930 F. 3d, 
at  573–574,13  but  the  rule  imposes  no  such  burden.    A 
woman who does not have the benefit of contraceptive cov-
erage under her employer’s plan is not the victim of a bur-
den imposed by the rule or her employer.  She is simply not 
the beneficiary of something that federal law does not pro-
vide.  She is in the same position as a woman who does not 
work outside the home or a woman whose health insurance 

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13

 Both the dissent and the court below refer to the statement in Cutter 
v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 720 (2005), that “courts must take adequate 
account of the burdens a requested accommodation may impose on non-
beneficiaries,” but that statement was made in response to the argument 
that RFRA’s twin, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons 
Act, 42 U. S. C. §2000cc et seq., violated the Establishment Clause.  The 
only  case  cited  by  Cutter  in  connection  with  this  statement,  Estate  of 
Thornton  v.  Caldor,  Inc., 472  U. S.  703  (1985),  involved  a  religious  ac-
commodation  that  the  Court  held  violated  the  Establishment  Clause.  
Before this Court, the States do not argue––and there is no basis for an 
argument—that the new rule violates that Clause.