Eden Foods

It's been two weeks since the SCOTUS handed down the ruling on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and the news since then isn't great. Please see the post prior to this one for a more in depth explanation of the ruling.

Eden Foods is one of the other companies in which the Hobby Lobby decision directly affected prior rulings on plaintiffs arguing the contraceptive mandate.

My personal use of Eden Foods products is pretty straight forward. I used to manage a small, local health food store which carried approximately thirty products from Eden Foods. I regularly bought their soy milk and ordered other products from our distributors. It's organic, non GMO certified and all that other good stuff. I haven't purchased Eden Foods products since I left that job over a year ago and I'm glad I haven't.

While I had the Burwell v Hobby Lobby case on my radar from the onset- it escaped me that Eden Foods was also suing the Department of Health and Human Services. In April 2013, Michael Potter, the companies founder and sole shareholder used the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), to hold that his rights were being violated by the contraceptive mandate. The court disagreed. However, given that the SCOTUS agrees that corporations have religious rights we are to now assume that Mr. Potter can refuse to cover anything contraceptive related. Potter has been a very vocal opponent of the Affordable Care Act from the beginning. When responding to the question of why he was suing he stated: “Because I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.” This was in an article from April 2013 on Salon.com. (HERE)

Potter is Catholic and unlike the Green's in the Hobby Lobby case, Potter asserts that his beliefs hold that all contraceptives and contraceptive related care are against the Catholic church. In the case of Hobby Lobby, the types of contraceptives were limited to the ones the Greens "believed" to be abortifacients (though they are not). This is a fact that a lot of media sources and individuals are touting as to how the ruling on Hobby Lobby is being incorrectly portrayed as being agaisnt birth control (i.e. "They just don't want to cover the abortion pill!"). Well, just one day after the Hobby Lobby ruling, the SCOTUS broadened the scope of the ruling and clarified that it could include ALL forms of contraceptives- not just the four being objected to by the owners of Hobby Lobby who don't believe in science (MOTHER JONES).

It looks like Michael Potter will get to deny his employees any coverage of contraceptives, regardless of the reasons they seek to use it. Eden Foods has experienced a backlash by those upset over the ruling and while the long term effect has yet to be determined it is possible that the impact on the financial aspect of the company may eventually hold some sway over Potters stance (though I highly doubt it). Petitions have been started asking stores to stop carrying Eden Foods- the big one of course is Whole Foods. You can find that petition here!