Are corporations guaranteed the same rights as individuals? The core of the lawsuit brought before the Supreme Court this past Tuesday is whether any corporation (in this case Hobby Lobby) is protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. The RFRA requires that the government prove "compelling interest" when someone's religious rights are "substantially burdened" by what the government wants it to do. Individuals and religious groups (like churches) are indeed covered by the RFRA, however, it hasn't been decided with certainty whether the RFRA's protections also extend to businesses or corporations.
Hobby Lobby is one of the 40 plus businesses that don't want to provide health insurance to their employees under the Affordable Care Act. Sure, they say they want to provide coverage but they don't want to provide the type of coverage mandated by the ACA. The ACA mandates that employers offer health insurance to employees that provide birth control without a co-pay. Birth control without insurance can cost up to $60 a month for the pill and even more for other methods such as the Nuva Ring. Longer term forms of contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (or IUD's), Implanons and Plan B are required to be offered without a co-pay as well.
Hobby Lobby claims that contraceptives, or more specifically IUD's and Plan B are against their religion. They want the Supreme Court to allow them to deny their employee's health insurance which covers these contraceptives because of their "freedom of religion." Hobby Lobby does not legally, have to offer their employees this coverage, instead they could pay a fine for not offering insurance at all or a fine for offering coverage without the contraceptive coverage. Hobby Lobby wants out of that too. Hobby Lobby wants to offer their employees insurance that does not cover anything that the religion of Hobby Lobby does not support. There are a couple things wrong with this picture. One, Hobby Lobby is a for profit corporation, the corporation has no religion- the family that owns Hobby Lobby has a religion. So if the Supreme Court rules on this case in favor of Hobby Lobby they will in fact be setting a precedent that corporations can have religions. This opens the door for any number of corporations to claim that the beliefs held by the owners (or board) should have the same protection as individuals.
First of all, the companies are not the ones that pay for the birth control; they pay for an insurance plan. The employees then use their insurance plan to cover their health care, which is none of the companies business. Furthermore, the companies argue that their own right to have their own beliefs are being violating when they are running a for profit business that cannot exist as its own entity. The owners of companies that make money off of customers are not allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices, sales procedures or other legal matters. Companies have to follow the law. This law requiring health insurance should be no different.
Even though Hobby Lobby and others contest that their freedom of religion is being violated, the freedom of the employees who want health insurance that covers all of their health care are being violated if they aren't given it. If contraceptives aren't against my religion- why does the employer get to deny me these prescriptions because of theirs? No one is being forced to take contraceptives and if Hobby Lobby doesn't want employees using contraceptives they really have no recourse because an employees health decisions are again, none of their business. You can't tell your employees what they can and can't do with their health care. The AFA gives women the status of full human beings that are not penalized simply for having a uterus.
But here is something that not everyone is aware of. Hobby Lobby is only contesting specific forms of contraceptives because they believe that they are actually abortion inducing drugs and not contraceptives.
Yup, the most mind boggling part of this entire situation is that the Obama administration has taken the "belief" held by Hobby Lobby and others seriously that Plan B and IUD's are abortifacients, even though scientifically, that is not correct. No one can bring up the fact that this is wrong. In deciding this case the very contraceptives that Hobby Lobby and others are fighting to be exempted from covering are misrepresented. Their beliefs, though entirely inaccurate are still to be considered beliefs, even though we know they are not correct.
Even the National Catholic Reporter states that "The reality is that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the IUD and Plan B work only as contraceptives." Also: "The most important point that emerges from all of this research is that, so far, there is no scientific evidence that any FDA-approved contraception is capable of destroying an embryo. To say that any of these drugs are abortifacient is not only misleading, it does a profound disservice to women who find themselves in a situation where they might have to use one of these drugs or devices (Article foundHERE)."
Whether or not Hobby Lobby should be allowed to have a religion and have protection from having to follow laws that "violate" that religion is not really what the Supreme Court is deciding. The Supreme Court is deciding if your business, which makes money, can in turn be an exception to laws. Yes, churches and other religious institutions are often afforded benefits not granted to the rest of us. Churches are exempt from taxes, churches have even been allowed exemptions for the birth control mandate (though that is an entirely different story). Hobby Lobby is not a church. Hobby Lobby may be a company founded on principles taken from religion but that does not mean Hobby Lobby can be categorized as a non-profit, religious organization that is granted those exemptions. No one is saying that Hobby Lobby cannot be founded on religious principles or that the owners cannot freely practice their own religion separate from their company. I've only briefly mentioned that a ruling from the Supreme Court allowing corporations to have the same religious freedoms as individuals would set a terrible precedent allowing all corporations to avoid following the law based on their "beliefs," considering the fact that the beliefs held by Hobby Lobby and others are not even true. That direction is the most dangerous for individuals who are employed by these corporations, not to mention society as a whole.
I am not against freedom of religion as long as practicing that religion doesn't involve preventing others from exercising their own religious or non-religious beliefs. Employees at every corporation should be allowed to make their own decisions based on their own beliefs, not the beliefs of those signing their pay checks or a board of trustees profiting from the corporation. Given that IUD's and Plan B are not even abortifacents to begin with, the fact that Hobby Lobby may be granted an exemption from following the law based on false "beliefs" rather than truth is frightening and an abomination to justice. So, Hobby Lobby and all the other corporations begging to be let off the hook based on religion- I have to quote one of the smartest women I know, my mother, who when asked about the requirement of businesses providing health insurance that covers all forms of contraceptives stated: "Obviously, it's just part of the cost of doing business."
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