A judge has ruled that Hobby Lobby must provide coverage for birth control in their employer sponsored health insurance. This is excellent news for women who work for Hobby Lobby, (and for their families)! Employers cannot impose their own, personal, religious beliefs upon their workers.
Part of the Affordable Care Act requires health insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control. This is because health plans must cover everything that has been categorized as preventative care. Women’s preventative care includes birth control. Previous to this rule, women were having to come up with money out of their own pocket to pay for birth control, (despite having health insurance coverage).
All private health insurance plans that were purchased after August of 2011 will have to cover birth control. This includes both individual plans and plans that are offered through an employer. The only exception is for churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship.
Business owners who choose to define their business as a “religious business” must comply with the birth control coverage rule. This is for two reasons. One, the business is not a place of worship. Two, employers are not allowed to impose their own, personal, religious beliefs upon their employees.
In September of 2012, the evangelical Christians who own the Hobby Lobby stores (and the Mardel stores) filed a federal lawsuit that was challenging the requirement that they cover birth control in employer sponsored health plans. Their entire argument can be summarized as this: CEO David Green and his family feel that offering birth control coverage goes against their personal religious beliefs.
The case has now been heard. U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton denied the request made by Hobby Lobby. The request was to have the courts prevent the federal government from enforcing portions of the Affordable Care Act that Hobby Lobby didn’t happen to agree with.
Specifically, the Judge ruled that Hobby Lobby must provide insurance coverage for birth control, including the morning after and week-after birth control pills and intrauterine devices. The Green family personally considers those types of birth control to be the same as an abortion. The Food and Drug Administration does not.
Judge Heaton noted that churches and other religious organizations have been granted permission to exclude birth control coverage in their employer sponsored health plans. However, as Judge Heaton said:
“Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations.” He went on to say: “Plaintiffs have not cited, and the court has not found, any case concluding that secular, for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby and Mardel have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.”
It is worth noting that the judge’s decision does not require anyone in the Green Family to have to personally use a form of birth control that they do not want to use, because of their own, personal, religious beliefs. It simply points out that employers cannot use their own, personal, religious beliefs to determine what the health plans they offer their employees will or will not cover.