Court weighs birth control mandate

[Jazzy]

The US Supreme Court has heard arguments in a case that turns on whether for-profit companies can exercise religious beliefs.

Two companies are challenging a provision of a 2010 healthcare overhaul that requires employers to cover the cost of workers' birth control.

Their owners say that violates their Christian beliefs. The government says an exemption would undermine the law.

The craft store Hobby Lobby and the Cabinetmaker Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp are challenging the measure in the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul, which is known to its detractors as "Obamacare".

The companies are owned by people who say their religious faith puts them in opposition to four methods of contraception included as preventative care in the law. The law requires them to offer birth control coverage in their company health insurance plans or pay a tax.

The companies are suing the federal department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the implementation of the healthcare law.

In this particular challenge, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga argue the contraception mandate creates an undue burden on the religious beliefs of a corporation. But neither Congress nor US courts have ever established clearly that corporations can have religious beliefs in the first place.

Much will depend on how the justices interpret the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which made it easier for individuals and groups to apply for religious exemptions from laws.

On Tuesday, Mr Verrilli argued that the RFRA was meant to protect individuals, not to hold employees hostage to their employers' religious beliefs.

He said that allowing companies to opt out of federal laws on religious grounds would enable them to cite their faith to oppose civil rights, disability access, or other civil protections ensured by the government - especially as it is impractical to debate the sincerity of any religious belief.

"Employers have an obligation to provide basic healthcare services and can't pick and choose what those services are," said Beth Parker, general counsel for Planned Parenthood of California, a women's health organisation.

Source

Without turning this into a religious debate, do you these corporations are using religious beliefs as an excuse to get out of paying for their employees birth control?

 

[Nebulous]

the contraception mandate creates an undue burden on the religious beliefs of a corporation

A corporation does not have religious beliefs first of all. Maybe it's founder/CEO does but I'm pretty sure every single employee is not the same religion. If they hired only people that believed exactly what they believed, the birth control wouldn't even be used and there wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Evil Eye]

Is a corporation a legal person?

 

[Jazzy]

The law requires them to offer birth control coverage in their company health insurance plans or pay a tax.

Since when is it an employer's responsibility to pay for birth control? Oh yeah, I forgot, Obummer has made it their responsibility. If women want to use "I got pregnant because my employer didn't cover birth control" what's next? My employer should now pay for this 'unplanned child' and all the costs of having this child?