by Adam Liptak; New York Times
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that requiring family-owned
corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the
Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.
The 5-to-4 decision, which applied to two companies owned by
Christian families, opened the door to challenges from other corporations to
many laws that may be said to violate their religious liberty.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court's five more
conservative justices, said a federal religious-freedom law applied to
for-profit corporations controlled by religious families. He added that the
requirement that the companies provide contraception coverage imposed a
substantial burden on the companies' religious liberty. He said the government
could provide the coverage in other ways.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court's four-member
liberal wing, said the contraception coverage requirement was vital to women's
health and reproductive freedom. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan
joined almost all of the dissent, but they said there was no need to take a
position on whether corporations may bring claims under the religious liberty
law.
On that point, Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sonia
Sotomayor, said the
court's decision "is bound to have untoward effects" in
other settings.
"The court's expansive notion of corporate personhood,"
Justice Ginsburg wrote, "invites for-profit entities to seek
religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their
faiths."
The contraception coverage requirement was challenged by two
corporations whose owners say they try to run their businesses on religious
principles: Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood
Specialties, which makes wood cabinets
The health care law and related regulations require many employers
to provide female workers with comprehensive insurance coverage for a variety
of methods of contraception. The companies objected to some of the methods,
saying they are tantamount to abortion because they can prevent embryos from implanting
in the womb. Providing insurance coverage for those forms of contraception
would, the companies said, make them complicit in the practice.
The companies said they had no objection to other forms of
contraception, including condoms, diaphragms, sponges, several kinds of birth
control pills and sterilization surgery.
The court ruled that corporations controlled by religious families
cannot be required to pay for contraception coverage for their female workers.
The Obama administration said it did not question the sincerity of
the companies' beliefs, and it has offered exemptions to other groups on such
grounds.
A federal judge has estimated that a third of Americans are not
subject to the requirement that their employers provide coverage for contraceptives.
Small employers need not offer health coverage at all; religious employers like
churches are exempt; religiously affiliated groups may claim an exemption; and
some insurance plans that had not previously offered the coverage are grandfathered
in.
But the administration said that for-profit corporations like
Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood must comply with the law or face fines.
The cases are Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, No. 13-354, and
Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, No. 13-356.
The companies challenged the coverage requirement under the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The law was a response to a 1990
Supreme Court decision that declined to recognize religious exceptions under
the First Amendment's free exercise clause to generally applicable laws.
Congress effectively reversed that decision.
"What this law basically says," President Bill Clinton
said before signing the bill, "is that the government should be held to a
very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free exercise of
religion."
The threshold question in the new case was whether the companies
were permitted to raise a claim under the law.
The companies argued that they were, and they said the coverage
requirement imposed a "substantial burden" on religious practices by
subjecting Hobby Lobby, for instance, to fines of $1.3 million a day if it
chose not to offer comprehensive coverage, and to different fines of $26
million a year if it stopped offering insurance entirely.
Some scholars responded that the company would be better off
financially if it dropped coverage, and so does not face a substantial burden.
The administration argued that requiring insurance plans to
include comprehensive coverage for contraception promotes public health and
ensures that "women have equal access to health care services." The
government's briefs added that doctors, rather than employers, should decide
which form of contraception is best.
A supporting brief from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and
policy group, said that many women cannot afford the most effective means of
birth control and that the law will reduce unintended
A copy of the Supreme Court Decision can be obtained by clicking
on the link below:
