Supreme Court Backs Hobby Lobby

[Guest shiloh357]

 

 

Birth Control cannot be compared to medications and procedures that save lives.   Birth Control is an elective product and does not serve a purpose like cancer medicine, blood transfusions,etc.  Birth Control is not a true healthcare issue.

 

 

I fully support hobby lobby and this decision ...

 

but to be fair, there are valid medical reasons for birth control pills. They are often used as hormone replacement therapy for younger women who have to have hysterectomies. Using the birth control pill gives them protection from breast cancer and osteoporosis that they would otherwise get naturally if they were not forced into a premature menopause state from the hysterectomy. 

 

Well, yes there's that, but they can get that without the abortifants that Hobby Lobby doesn't want to pay for, can't they? 

[ayin jade]

 

 

 

Birth Control cannot be compared to medications and procedures that save lives.   Birth Control is an elective product and does not serve a purpose like cancer medicine, blood transfusions,etc.  Birth Control is not a true healthcare issue.

 

 

I fully support hobby lobby and this decision ...

 

but to be fair, there are valid medical reasons for birth control pills. They are often used as hormone replacement therapy for younger women who have to have hysterectomies. Using the birth control pill gives them protection from breast cancer and osteoporosis that they would otherwise get naturally if they were not forced into a premature menopause state from the hysterectomy. 

 

Well, yes there's that, but they can get that without the abortifants that Hobby Lobby doesn't want to pay for, can't they? 

 

 

It is easier since it is a mix of hormones and mimics the natural cycle to give the women birth control pills as hormone replacement therapy (hrt) instead of separate medicine for hrt. There are all sorts of mechanisms in place that any medical health care plan has that can limit its use only in women who are in a state of artificial menopause caused by hysterectomy. That way you dont have to deal with the abortifacient aspect of its use as a means of birth control. 

[GoldenEagle]

Here's a good summary:

 

"Judging by the reaction of people on the internets, you would think that the Supreme Court just banned all forms of birth control. It hasn't. It also didn't say that corporations like Hobby Lobby can do whatever they want, or that they don't have to follow the law just because they have religious objections to it. Hobby Lobby wasn't opposed to all birth ...control. This case isn't about "corporations imposing their morality" on others and this certainly wasn't such a complicated issue that the even the Supreme Court judges didn't know what to do. The court did reach the correct conclusion in my view, but you have to look at more than just the headline to understand why this was the right outcome. I think that if most people actually looked at why and how the court reached their outcome, most people wouldn't be so upset.

Has anyone here heard of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)? I'm guessing most haven't. This case was about RFRA, a federal statute signed by President Clinton that was intended to protect religious liberties after a certain Supreme Court decision (Employment Division v. Smith) had significantly changed and eroded the law that protected religious liberties.

Under RFRA, an individual who has a sincerely held religious belief can seek an exemption from the law if they can show the imposes a substantial burden on their belief or practice. If they can show 1.) that they have a sincere religious belief or practice and 2) a substantial burden, then the Government is required to prove that it has a "compelling interest" in applying the law against the individual despite the religious belief.

The term "compelling interest" has specific meaning within Constitutional law and means 1) that the government must have an exceptionally crucial and necessary purpose for the law; 2) the law is narrowly written to advance that purpose and is not overbroad; and 3) the law is the least restrictive means possible to accomplish that government purpose - there cannot be another means that is less restrictive to accomplish the same purpose. If the Government cannot prove each requirement, then the Courts will find it does not have a "compelling interest" and the law does not apply.

At issue in this case was whether RFRA would apply to a corporation - specifically in this case, a closely-held private corporation with only a few shareholders, and if so, whether RFRA analysis would apply in this particular situation. The court found that RFRA did apply to closely-held corporations, because federal law defines corporations as an individual and because they are separate legal entities, just like a person. To lawyers, this was probably the most controversial holding in this case. I personally believe this was the right outcome because although corporations are legal fictions, they are controlled by individuals who do have rights and beliefs and because the law treats corporations as separate entities.

This court holding does not mean that every corporation or individual that claims to have a religious belief gets excused from this Obamacare mandate or any other law. You have to apply this test in each individual case.

Here, the court found Hobby Lobby did have a sincere religious belief and that this law did impose a substantial burden on Hobby Lobby's owner's religious beliefs. It also found Government didn't have a compelling interest in forcing Hobby Lobby to buy insurance that covered abortion-causing birth control medications. The court found (I think rightly) that there was no compelling interest because forcing Hobby Lobby to purchase insurance that covers abortion-causing medications wasn't, at a minimum, the least restrictive way (requirement #3) to promote Obamacare's birth control policy.

The court found this wasn't the least-restrictive means of promoting the birth control policy in Obamacare because the Obamacare already exempted non-profit (ie: religious) employers from providing abortion-causing birth control medications. For women who work for non-profits that don't cover these medications, the Government has a program that will pay for these medications. Since the Government already created an exemption, it could have choose to create a similar program that wouldn't interfere with a business' owner's religious beliefs against buying insurance that covers these exemptions." - Jones

 

[SonOfTheNorthe]

What I think should happen is that we need to stop tying healthcare to employment, and develop a single-payer system. It gets rid of this issue completely.

[Guest shiloh357]

What I think should happen is that we need to stop tying healthcare to employment, and develop a single-payer system. It gets rid of this issue completely.

No way.  No single payer system.  That puts government in control of healthcare.  the government is good at taking our money but is horrible at producing a product.

[ayin jade]

I have worked in the VA and IHS, both of which are govt run health care systems in the US. You do not want a single payer system. 

[JustinM]

Do you all remember when healthcare was a benefit of employment, not an entitlement?  It was something corporations used to incentivize professionals to work for them.  Now it's another cost associated with employing people, along with unemployment, worker's compensation insurance, and dental in some cases.