Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over Obamacare and Religion
The Supreme Court on Tuesday takes up the most closely
watched issue of its term: Does the Obamacare law violate the religious freedom
of private employers by requiring them to provide insurance coverage for
contraceptives?
To answer that question, the justices must first decide
whether the companies challenging the law, three for-profit corporations, even
have religious views in the first place. The Obama administration says they do
not, arguing that freedom of religion is an individual right, not a corporate
one.
At issue is a provision of the healthcare law that requires
companies with more than 50 employees to cover preventive care services, which
include such contraceptives as morning-after pills, diaphragms, and IUDs.
The law was challenged by the Hobby Lobby, a chain of 500
craft stores employing 13,000 people; Mardel Christian bookstores, with 35
outlets and 400 employees; and Conestoga Wood Specialties, whose 950 employees
make doors and other parts for kitchen cabinets.
The Obama administration says freedom of religion applies
only to the owners of companies challenging the law, not to the companies
themselves.
Hobby Lobby and Mardel are owned and operated by an Oklahoma
family, David and Barbara Green and their children. Hobby Lobby's official statement
of purpose commits it to "honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the
company in a manner consistent with biblical principles."
Norman and Elizabeth Hahn of Pennsylvania, who own Conestoga
Wood with their three sons, are Mennonite Christians.
Both the Greens and the Hahns believe that the use of some
contraceptives amounts to abortion, destroying a human life by interfering with
a fertilized egg.
"This case is entirely about whether the government can
coerce families of faith to buy these life-destroying products and coverage for
other people," Matt Bowman, a lawyer for Conestoga Wood, said in an
interview.
The Obama administration argues that the freedom of religion
applies only to the Greens and the Hahns individually, not to the for-profit
corporations they run. It's the corporations, not the family members
themselves, who are required to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives
under Obamacare, the government says.
And because the Supreme Court has never said that a
for-profit corporation can claim it has freedom of religion, the government
says, the law does not violate the Constitution.
Does requiring contraceptive coverage violate religious
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The administration also says the law serves an important
public purpose.
"Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States
are unintended," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrelli said in a court
filing. He said contraceptives "reduce the risk of adverse outcomes of
pregnancies that are too closely spaced." Women's groups say oral
contraceptives also reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 50 percent.
But the owners of the three companies challenging the
contraceptive coverage law say they are not required to check their religious
beliefs at the corporate door.
Paul Clement, a lawyer for Hobby Lobby, said in a filing
that the Supreme Court "has never suggested that free exercise rights are
purely personal, or that individuals could not exercise religion when in
engaged in particular activities like making money or when using particular
means like a corporation."
It can't be, he says, that the First Amendment singles out
religious exercise as the only right that cannot be exercised while earning a
living.
The companies are among more than three dozen for-profit
corporations that challenged the contraceptive mandate in federal courthouses
nationwide. Hobby Lobby and Mardel prevailed in the lower courts, but Conestoga
Wood lost its claim.
The companies rely not only on the Constitution but also on
a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the federal
government cannot "substantially burden a person's exercise of
religion," even if the burden results from a general law intended to apply
to everyone.
They have the support of friend-of-court briefs from
religious groups as well as 21 states and 107 members of the U.S. House and
Senate. Neither the Constitution nor federal laws, they argue, can deprive a
group — even a for-profit corporation — of religious freedom.
The ACLU and other civil liberties groups line up on the
other side. Julian Bond, former chairman of the NAACP, warns that while
religious motivations have inspired reforms toward social justice,
"religion has frequently played the opposite role in our nation's history,
invoked by those who sought to perpetuate discrimination based on race or
gender."
Slavery and Jim Crow laws, Bond says, were once defended on
religious grounds.
The Supreme Court will issue its decision sometime before
the term ends in late June.
First published March 21st 2014, 1:46 pm
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