Contraception Within The Affordable Care Act

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Contraception within the Affordable Care Act
Sarah Tharpe
University of New England
SSW 505
October 16, 2014

Abstract
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its mandate regarding contraception has been the center of contention since the United States Supreme Court decided to go forward with the case in 2013. The initial mandate in question instructed establishments to include and or make available all forms of contraception. Additionally, the employee’s individual health care plan was to provide the contraception at no cost so as not to impose an additional burden. Then again, particular forms of birth control conflict with the beliefs of many of the for-profit corporations represented in the case. However, some corporations have voiced…show more content…
Hobby Lobby, 2013). The federal government declined to impose any restrictions and or fines until the case was resolved (Wyatt, 2014) by the Supreme Court of the United States the following year, eventually ruling in favor by a slight margin for corporations based on religious objections (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 2014).
The controversial and historic precedent set by the high court has once and for all removed the burden of providing contraceptives to employees by corporations. One of the many challenges of this paper is to delineate between the 1993 Congressional Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment Free Exercise Claus as both were paramount to the most recent ruling. Thankfully, establishing what is applicable to whom and why has become less arduous concerning religious views but conversely has the potential for further infringements.
Overview
An extraordinary amount of media’s attention has been devoted towards Hobby Lobby’s slight victory through a decision by the Supreme Court in their most recent Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014). The attention was focused on the court’s decision that essentially negated corporations claiming religious objections to certain contraceptives from participating in the mandate. Depending upon the participation and religious
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