Burwell V. Hobby Lobby Stores: Case Study

First I will like to discuss the effect this decision made on an organization. It is important, because this organization is a large vehicle to the effort of birth control. Planned Parenthood, is an organization which offer its services to help family control pregnancies, counsels young woman on abortion, and it 's a lead voice in protection of the body of the female over the offspring. I will continue with Planned Parenthood expansion, while I explained the consequences of the precedent established by Griswold v. Connecticut in subsequent landmark cases.

The contraceptive coverage in the new Health Care law makes preventative care more accessible and affordable to millions of Americans. This is particularly important for women who are more likely to avoid the cost of contraceptives because of cost. To help address these barriers in terms of cost and ensure that all women have access to preventative Health Care Act, all new private insurance plan that covers a wide range of preventative services such as breast x-rays, pap smears smoking prevention and contraception without co-payments or requirements for sharing other costs. The current problem is that the Affordable Care Act is imposing on the 500 store chains of Hobby Lobby’s religious rights by forcing the company to provide full coverage of contraceptives of the 13,000 workers as part of its health care plans. David Green and family, whom founded Hobby Lobby, believe that the healthcare act is violating their held religious convictions.

Galloway (2013), Galloway argued that the town of Greece violated the establishment clause. The establishment clause within the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that the national government is unable to establish an official religion. In this court case, it was ruled that the prayers at the town hall did not violate the establishment clause. The basis for this ruling had to do with tradition. In the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2013), the Green family had to provide health care to their employees under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ruling for this case was that the religious beliefs of the Green family are a factor that can let them deny health care to employees that have different religious beliefs. With a five to four ruling, the Hobby Lobby Stores won the case. These two cases show how Freedom of Religion can be used

On September 19, 2013 the supreme court saw the case of Hobby Lobby V.S Sebelius. If the courts agree with Hobby Lobby then millions of women are out of essential health care they need just because their employers don 't want to cover contraceptives. Even though congress made it clear that these laws made for religious freedom were made for individuals, religious institutions, and religious organizations. If corporations were given religious freedom, it does not necessarily mean that they will be given freedom from contraception requirements that do not burden religious freedom. All the health care plan was made for was to give women the health care they need for their well being.

Often times in today’s world we take certain luxuries for granted. The right to vote, the right of free speech, etc. But one of those luxuries that people often don’t consider is the right for women to use birth control. The Supreme Court case that argued for the use of contraceptives was Griswold vs Connecticut. The court case was argued March 29th-30th 1965, but was not decided until June 7th 1965. The case was on the debate of whether or not the use of contraceptives should be legalized. Griswold, the Executive and Medical Director of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, was on the side arguing for the legalization of the use of contraceptives in a marriage. While the opposing side, the state of Connecticut statute, had forbidden the use of contraceptives since 1879.

With the help of such an act, many health insurance providers must cover birth control costs. In regard to employers paying for birth control, the idea has been already turned down by the Supreme court case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores. “Hobby Lobby [is known as a] for-profit arts and crafts store chain that employs more than 13,000 individuals. It sued the government for infringement of its right to exercise religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The company brought suit in order to limit the contraceptive coverage made available on the insurance plan it provides employees” (Light). Therefore, if an employer found birth control to be a violation of their beliefs, an employer would not be forced to cover it. Many Americans disagreed with this policy prior to the Supreme Court case; however, the Hobby Lobby stores still continued despite the public’s opinion (Light). Even though employer coverage cannot be amended upon, the Affordable Care Act does help many Americans that do suffer through financial

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was set in place for the sake of protecting people’s freedoms. Some claim that the Greens ignored the freedoms of their employees by not providing contraceptives. However, just because Hobby Lobby and Mardels employees cannot have their contraceptives paid for does not mean they cannot access those resources. Contraceptives are freely accessible. The only thing prohibited by this ruling is that the corporations will not pay for their employees to access it.

Opponents of the mandate also refer to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 when challenging the ACA’s contraceptive requirements. Based on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s legal analysis of the RFRA, in regards to religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations, employers would qualify from an exemption should the government not have a compelling interest to provide preventative care (including contraceptives) or accommodation meet the compelling interest in the least restrictive way. The general public is very divided on this issue; pew research on the birth control insurance mandate found that from a survey of 1,501 adults: 48% believe religiously affiliated institutions should be exempt from this rule, 44 believe religiously affiliated organizations should be required to cover for contraceptives, and 8% are unsure/don’t know. Of the Catholic group, the percentages were 55%, 39%, and 7%, respectively. There is indeed a wide variety of opinions in this subject: Some saying that all religiously-affiliated organizations should abide to the contraception mandate, others saying certain ones, while others saying none. The main issue is where to set that line of the exemption. There have been efforts by religiously affiliated organizations (most of which are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) to extent exemptions to religiously affiliated organizations. Some of the more high profile cases regarding this issue include the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014) and the Zubik v. Burwell (2016); both resulting in split decisions (5-4 and 4-4, respectively). Several smaller cases were made pertaining to this issue, many of these cases including Sylvia Mary Mathews Burwel, the 22nd United States Secretary of

On September 12, 2012, a for-profit corporation, by the name of Hobby Lobby, sued the Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, who at the time was Kathleen Sebelius. The Green family, owner of Hobby Lobby store incorporated, sued due to a mandate known as the Patient Care and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Therefore, this act mandated that businesses must provide contraceptives to employees under their insurance benefits. However, contraceptives were against the Green family’s religious faith, so they denied their employees contraceptives in their insurance benefit plans. Later on, the Green family sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, stating that this was an infringement

In Hobby Lobby the Court reiterated its interpretation that a corporation has rights similar to that of an individual (Citizens United v. FEC), since corporations are composed of individuals, and thus are due the rights granted in the RFRA. The Court in Hobby Lobby found that providing contraception, and access to reproductive healthcare, serves the compelling state interest of public health and welfare. In parallel, this Court found that ensuring that people have coverage by health care providers is a compelling state interest. Hobby Lobby correctly applied the test of strict scrutiny, and required that the mandate be the least restrictive means of advancing this compelling government interest. This is where the mandate failed as applied to Hobby Lobby. The Court found the mandate could not be applied to private corporations in order to require them to provide reproductive healthcare. In contrast, in the case at hand, the rule prohibiting multiple spouses as beneficiaries of a health insurance policy is the least restrictive way to advance a compelling government interest; that being the ability to provide the public with insurance in order to advance public health and welfare. Therefore, RFRA is not a basis upon which Mr. Bridges can claim his rights are violated if the insurance does not cover more than one wife. In conclusion, RFRA is not the basis for requiring health insurance to cover both Germanotta’s and Maraj 's claims.

Since the 18th century, the Supreme Court has set precedents for how laws and the Constitution would be applied in daily life. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, distinguishing what cases qualify to not follow laws for religious reasons becomes strenuous. There are many other religions that oppose components typically included in a health plan; for example, many Jews object to pills covered in gelatin derived from pigs. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, these objections would also be valid (Ginsburg). The chaos that ensues from the nitpicking of every part of a healthcare plan undermines the purpose of the law.

Furthermore, Hobby Lobby believes that their religion as Christian should not be violated, because the new law passed explain that corporations with 30 or more employees should give them health care coverage. “Department of Health and Human Services regulations implementing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires that employers’ group health plans furnish preventive care and screenings for women without cost sharing requirement” (Justia 1). The Department of Health and Human Services believed that every corporation should be allowed to a better health plan. People imposed of Hobby Lobby refused to see that Hobby lobby had a valid reason why they should not be allowed to a health coverage that allowed them to get an abortion or prevent one, it case was later taken to the Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the businesses, holding that RFRA applies to regulations that govern

Applying the new framework to Hobby Lobby reveals how granting the religious exemption to closely held corporations can not only coexist with the government’s interests of making sure female employees have access to the four controversial contraceptives, but it also best ensures this interest. For the sake of argument, let’s first consider what would happen without the exemption. Closely held corporations would have three choices. They could either ignore their religious convictions, provide incomplete healthcare coverage by paying an extra $100 per day per employee fee, or offer no coverage and pay $2000 per year per employee (11). However, these companies will almost never choose to ignore their beliefs, therefore really only giving them the latter two choices. In the event of the second choice, women would be offered no alternative, affordable healthcare option that grants them access to the

However, I will say that at the time I can understand how religious freedom rights may come across as very loose and not well defined. Only due to the fact that this case was one of the first to challenge an, “unfair,” federal law. Reynolds v. US is extremely interesting simply because during this time period, some laws were very undefined, leaving people in the dark about what is lawful and what is not. It seems that nowadays laws do not come off this was as they are very well defined and clear to understand.

Today, we are seeing more companies exercise their right to control what medications they allow on their corporate health insurance plans. In this case, Hobby Lobby has exercised its right to not pay or contribute to employees needing or wanting birth control. According to Hobby Lobby, birth control is in strict contrast with their religious beliefs (Planned Parenthood ). “On June 30, 2014, the US Supreme Court allowed certain bosses to block employees’ access to birth control. The decision applied to more than half of the US workforce.” (Planned Parenthood ). While Hobby Lobby is a large corporation with operations throughout the United