GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The federal government cannot force a Catholic-owned Michigan company to provide insurance coverage for sterilization, contraceptives and drugs that could cause abortion, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan ruled Jan. 5.

The ruling comes as the court revisited its three-year-old ruling against Autocam Medical LLC, which, according to its website, is a manufacturer of “high-performance parts for demanding medical applications, including implants, instruments, handpieces and components.”

Judge Robert Jonker, who had previously ruled against Autocam Medical, said that, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the government may not require the family business “to provide its employees with health coverage for contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures and related patient education and counseling to which plaintiff objects on religious grounds.”

John Kennedy, CEO of the company that was founded in 2008, and other family members who own the company had filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that states companies must cover drugs and procedures that violate Catholic religious and ethical principles.

Before the mandate was implemented, the company had designed an insurance plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan that did not violate the Kennedy family’s Catholic beliefs.

“Coercing citizens to violate their conscientious religious beliefs makes a mockery of the very notion of religious freedom,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society.

He said the ruling “sets another strong precedent for the free exercise of religious faith on the part of all American citizens.”

Brejcha said the decision protected the company’s rights under the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Ave Maria Law School professor Patrick Gillen served as special counsel in the case for the Thomas More Society and helped draft a petition for U.S. Supreme Court review.

Had the Supreme Court decision not issued its 2014 ruling, many business owners could have faced the prospect of paying steep fines or agreeing to a health plan that violated their religious beliefs. More than 300 plaintiffs throughout the U.S. have filed lawsuits challenging the mandate.