Religious rights activists in Missouri claimed a major victory Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that closely held corporations can cite religious objections to the federal health care law.
The high court sided with members of the Green family, owners of the craft store chain Hobby Lobby, in their case challenging the contraception mandate embedded in President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law.
The ruling marked the first time the court has held that for-profit businesses can hold religious views under federal law. Still, it was specific to corporations controlled by a small group of people in which there is hardly any difference between the ownership and those controlling the company. While the ruling gives companies like Hobby Lobby the option to opt out, publicly traded companies would not be given the same flexibility.
“Can it be challenged by publicly traded corporations in the future? It could,” said Josh Hawley, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “But, they’re going to have to show they have a sincere religious belief and that they’ve pursued that over time.”
Hawley was one of more than a dozen lawyers involved in arguing and strategizing Hobby Lobby’s case. He traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in oral arguments earlier this year.
Hawley said only four of the 20 forms of contraception covered by the federal health care law were at issue — two drugs and two intrauterine devices.
“Those are the only four out of the 20 that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall. The other 16 operate by preventing conception and are available to Hobby Lobby employees,” he said. “For the Green family and others that believe life begins at conception, these drugs are equivalent to abortion.”
The court said the ruling would not prevent women from accessing contraception. The ruling notes that the Obama administration has devised an option for religious nonprofit entities to provide the same services through insurers, not employers.
“The Supreme Court said as to the four (contraceptives) that remained that the government can easily provide those at no cost to women directly through various other means. There’s already a mechanism in place,” Hawley said.
Hawley is the executive director of the Missouri Liberty Project, which praised the ruling. It was joined in support of Hobby Lobby by groups such as the Missouri Catholic Conference and Missouri Right to Life.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was critical of the 5-4 majority for providing a for-profit corporation a religious exemption for the first time.
“The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is a characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities,” she wrote.
Paula Gianino, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said she was disappointed that “we are still fighting for access to birth control in 2014.”
“Today, the Supreme Court ruled against women and families, giving some employers the right to discriminate against women and deny their employees access to birth control coverage — access that saved women $483 million in the last year alone.”
She did say it was “fortunate” that the ruling was limited in scope to only closely held corporations.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this report.
Missouri
IN MISSOURI, lawmakers have continued to challenge abortion rights. Last year, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed legislation that would have allowed businesses to opt out of covering contraception in their insurance plans. This year, legislators sent legislation to Nixon that would triple the state’s current 24-hour waiting period for an abortion.