Hobby Lobby Challenges Emergency Contraceptive Coverage

Do corporations have a right to religious speech, like individuals? Should corporations be forced to pay for drugs that could kill a life? 

The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the issue on March 25, whether employers must provide insurance coverage with no co-pays for “emergency” contraception, according to Charisma News. 

A decision should be announced before the end of the court term in June 2014. 

Hobby Lobby Stores, one of the nation’s leading arts and crafts retailers with 500 locations in 41 states, are refusing to provide access to “abortifiacient” drugs, or those that cause an abortion, due to their Christian values. 

Specifically those drugs would interfere with a fertilized egg attaching in the womb, which is essential for a viable pregnancy.

Hobby Lobby already provides insurance coverage for 16 other forms of birth control which include those that prevent a woman from releasing eggs and those that prevent sperm from fertilizing the egg. 

Specifically, the Becket Fund, said the Green Family, who owns Hobby Lobby, object to drugs which include Plan B and Ella, the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill. “Covering these drugs and devices would violate their most deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception, when an egg is fertilized.” 

The Becket Fund says that the Greens respect the individual liberties of all employees and that “the four objectionable drugs and devices are widely available and affordable, and employees are free to obtain them.” 

According to Examiner, in a letter from David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc, states his business is “run on Christian values. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money.”

Specifically, Green says the chain closes early so employees can see their families at night and their stores are closed on Sundays so workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. The company has added jobs in a sluggish economy and raised wages for the past four years in a row. Employees start at 80% above minimum wage. 

“Our government threatens to change all of that. A new government healthcare mandate says that our family business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million per day in government fines. Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we out to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.”

Green explains that he has filed a lawsuit asking the mandate to stop before it “hurts our business”. 

“The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that’s a choice no American and no American business should have to make.”

The Beckett Fund states that the Green family “respects the religious convictions of all Americans, including those who do not agree with them. All they are asking is for the government to give them the same respect by not forcing them to violate their religious beliefs.” 

Hobby Lobby has already received support from women’s groups, doctors and scholars, diverse religious, leading scholars, twenty states which filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to protect Hobby Lobby, along with three Congressional briefs filed by members of Congress in both parties. 107 members of the House and Senate are asking the Supreme Court to protect the Greens’ religious freedom. 

I encourage readers to support Hobby Lobby and their right to run a company as they see fit. Hobby Lobby has a Connecticut store in East Haven, a Rhode Island store in Warwick, and a Massachusetts store in Holyoke. It plans to open a Seekonk, Mass. store on March 14, 2014.