The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously rejected a Christian university's challenge to rules requiring most employers to provide health care coverage to their employees.

Liberty University Inc., a privately owned Christian school in Lynchburg, Va., sued the federal government in 2010, the day after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law.

Its suit alleged that the law's coverage mandates for individuals and employers violated the school's constitutional right to freely exercise its religious beliefs by requiring employers to provide coverage that includes certain abortion services.

The school also alleged that Congress could not enforce the mandates under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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Last week, a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court’s November 2010 decision declaring that the mandates are permissible — either as a tax or under the Commerce Clause — and do not violate Liberty University’s free exercise of its First Amendment right under the U.S. Constitution or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“The plaintiffs present no plausible claim that the (mandates) substantially burden their free exercise of religion by forcing them to facilitate or support abortion,” the judges wrote in their July 11 decision. The ruling noted that the reform law permits employers to purchase health plans that do not cover abortion services.

During oral arguments before the court, Liberty also argued that taxes and fees collected under the reform law also violated its right to religious freedom, alleging that the money would be used to support federal subsidies for health plans purchased through federal exchanges, many of which would cover abortion services.

“To the extent that the plaintiffs contend that the tax payment itself is a substantial burden, as the district court explained, the act contains strict safeguards at multiple levels to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for nonexempted abortion services,” the appeals court ruled.

Though Liberty University also sought to challenge the health care reform rules requiring most employers to provide cost-free coverage for contraceptive prescriptions, the appeals court declined to rule on that point, as it was not part of the school’s suit when the district court issued its ruling in 2010.

In a statement last week, Liberty University’s attorneys said they planned to petition the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of overturning the lower courts’ rulings.

“I am glad the court reached the merits on the employer mandate, even though the court got it wrong, because this clears the way for the case to now go to the Supreme Court,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the school’s legal arm, said in the statement. “The Supreme Court concluded that the individual mandate cannot be upheld under the Commerce Clause because Congress cannot force people to buy an unwanted product. But this court of appeals has now decided that Congress can force employers to buy an unwanted product. As Congress cannot force individuals to buy an unwanted product, neither can it force employers to do so.”