I can understand their point: it’s difficult to earn $9 a month to purchase birth control pills in the Obameconomy
(Washington Times) The Obama administration ordered employers Thursday to notify their workers if they plan to cut birth-control coverage from their health plans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby†decision.
Labor Department officials announced the policy just a day after Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would have overturned the justices’ ruling, which said closely held corporations can refuse to insure contraceptives they object to on moral grounds.
Congressional Democrats cheered the administration’s move as an important step to give workers a chance to know what obstacles they may face in obtaining free contraception.
Therein lies the problem: Democrats are all about promising their base free stuff, without informing said low information voters that the costs are simply included in their insurance plan costs. Nor do they care a whit about infringing on religious liberties.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, introduced a bill to go even further and require for-profit companies to disclose their policies to job applicants, too.
“Workers should be informed if their employers are restricting the availability of coverage for contraception or any other health care service guaranteed under law,†said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.
Good grief. People who can’t even run the country correctly are attempting to tell companies how to run their businesses.
Remember when Democrats use to say that what goes on in the bedroom is private? Now they want to get involved heavily in this. This is all for political show, just like the vote attempting to force “closely held companies” to provide abortifacients. Which would have ended up right back at the Supreme Court, and would have clearly been a direct violation of the 1st Amendment’s religious clause. “Congress shall pass no law…” is how the 1st starts out. Not that Democrats care. They have free contraception to pass out!
In the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court could have ruled based on the First Amendment, but ruled instead on statutory grounds, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Dictionary Act, both of which are subject to change through legislation.
You have a point regarding that the Hobby Lobby ruling was related to legislation, not the 1st. However, if Congress passes their contraception bill they will violate the 1st.
Then why didn’t the Supreme Court rule on the First Amendment issue in Hobby Lobby?
Good question. I’m not schooled enough in the details of the original suit. I suspect it was filed per the RRFA, not as a 1st amendment case. For one thing, it wasn’t congress which enacted the contraceptive mandate. It was wholly a creation of the Executive branch. While it does violate the spirit of the 1st, not the letter. Though, it could be argued that it does violate, since Congress passed the law (Ocare) which gave Obama the latitude to create the contraceptive mandate. However, we can also consider that there was no intent in Ocare to infringe on religious freedom.
In Employment Division v. Smith, the court held that free exercise did not trump generally applicable laws:
No law could stand, and
After this decision, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which provided that government could not infringe on a person’s religious beliefs unless the government had a compelling interest, and it used the least intrusive means available. Under the Dictionary Act, a person could mean a business. From the record, it’s doubtful that’s what Congress meant, but that’s what the court relied upon for its decision. The Hobby Lobby decision did find a compelling state interest, but relied upon the finding that there were less intrusive means available, such as single-payer for contraception.
Unless the Supreme Court overturns Employment Division v. Smith, there’s no First Amendment case. It’s a matter of legislative prerogative. Of course, no such legislation can pass in the current Congress.
Emergency contraceptives (they are NOT abortifacients) such as Plan B and ella cost considerably more than $9, typically $50 or more. This may not seem like much to rich white men like Teach and I but to young mother making minimum wage it can be considerable.