Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Helen M. Alvaré June 30, 2014
A drummer joins demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court rallying against a federal mandate requiring most employers to cover contraceptives for employees as part of their health care. (CNS photo/ Jonathan Ernst) (June 30, 2014)

Today’s Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood case is as big a deal as it seems. It is a legal feast for First Amendment scholars, treating as it does so many of the sub-issues involved in Free Exercise litigation.

Plaintiffs were challenging a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation requiring employers to provide health insurance that included (without a co-pay) all FDA-approved contraceptives and emergency contraceptives. The two for-profit corporations involved were unwilling to cover Plan B and Ella (morning after drugs) and two forms of IUDs because manufacturers of these products acknowledge that can act to destroy already-formed human embryos. HHS did not dispute this. The companies sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which requires that when a federal law substantially burdens religion, the law may not stand unless the government can demonstrate that it serves a “compelling state interest” by the means “least restrictive” of religious freedom. The decision today held the following:

  1. Closely held corporations are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Court reached this conclusion easily from the text and history of RFRA. The Court did not decide about larger corporations. They did note that such corporations have not and are unlikely to seek RFRA protection. They also indicated that state corporation law could provide the source for determining how a corporation does or does not adopt a religious viewpoint.
  2. The decision decisively recognized that the religious actor, not the government, gets to decide whether or not his or her religious conscience is violated. The Court’s language here was strong.
  3. While the Court voiced serious doubts that the federal government could demonstrate a “compelling state interest” sufficient to allow it to impose the contraception mandate in spite of the burdens on the plaintiffs, it ultimately held that it did not have to decide this question. Rather, it was enough for the Court to find that even if the government did have a compelling interest, it had failed to show that it had pursued its interest by the “least restrictive means.” Here’s where the opinion gets a little tricky.

On the one hand, the Court indicated that the government could simply provide women contraception directly as a way of satisfying its interests. On the other hand, the Court also stated that by granting for-profit corporations the same “accommodation” it was providing religious non-profits, it could satisfy the “least restrictive means” test. Could this indicate that groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor—who have this “accommodation” but who still hold that “facilitating” others’ purchasing contraception for their employees violates their conscience—are already the beneficiary of a “least restrictive means” law? The majority explicitly stated that it was not deciding this question for all religious claimants.

The Court was also careful to draw lines answering the “worst case scenarios” suggested by Justice Ginsburg’s dissent. The decision limited its holding to the law at issue (the mandate regarding contraceptives and morning-after drugs). It did not extend itself to cover medical procedures generally (e.g., immunizations, blood transfusions), and stated directly that it is no barrier to holding corporations responsible for abiding by nondiscrimination in employment laws, given the strength of governmental interests in these.

In my view, because no citizen can be sure whether or not they will enjoy a federal government suited to their political tastes, this case is a nonpartisan victory for the religious freedom of individuals to be free from laws burdening their religious freedom. 

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Chris Sullivan
9 years 9 months ago
A question: does the ruling apply to all forms of contraception, or only the 4 types which Hobby Lobby worried mght be abortifacient ? God Bless
Steven Reynolds
9 years 9 months ago
I suspect the opinions taken as a whole provide the likely answer for the inevitable future case from religious non-profits on whether contraception mandate is a compelling state interest - Kennedy in his concurrence makes that finding and so there may be 5 votes with the dissenters here on a future case. Another aspect of the case that will be troubling to those who dive into it is that the extent to which Justices Alito (court's opinion) and Ginsburg (the dissent) disagree about the text and history of RFRA. Having no expertise there and not desiring to read legislative history, it leaves you wondering. I must admit I also found much of Alito's argument about closely-held corporations vs. large companies and state corporate law resolving questions to be confused. These were good facts for this challenge - the companies had convincing arguments that they were family-controlled and motivated by religious viewpoints not simply profit maximizing and the objection to four-specific contraceptive methods that serve as abortifacts.
Tim O'Leary
9 years 9 months ago
The Supreme's 5-4 vote and its very limited ruling does not give me much confidence that our religious rights are secure. Obamacare is a Trojan horse, offering the gift of healthcare, but filled with soldiers in the War against Religion. As the U2 Vertigo song goes, "All of this... all of this can be yours - Just give me what I want and no one gets hurt."

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024