Two Democratic senators have introduced a bill they say is aimed to overrule the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision and force Christian business owners to pay for abortion drugs.
Anti-life Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Mark Udall of Colorado have created what they titled the “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act.” Abortionists like Planned Parenthood have already praised the bill.
“After five justices decided last week that an employer’s personal views can interfere with women’s access to essential health services, we in Congress need to act quickly to right this wrong,” Murray said in a statement yesterday. “This bicameral legislation will ensure that no CEO or corporation can come between people and their guaranteed access to health care, period.”
“As the nation’s leading advocate for women’s reproductive health care, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is committed to making sure women can get the no-copay birth control benefit that we and others fought so hard to pass and protect,” Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards proclaimed. “No woman should lose access to birth control because her boss doesn’t approve of it.”
None of the Senators nor any of the groups speaking out in favor of the bill have mentioned that the Court’s decision only applies to 4 of the 20 contraceptives connected to the Affordable Care Act. This means that no women working for these companies is denied contraception.
The National Organization for Women, furious over the Hobby Lobby ruling and organizations that stand up against the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on abortion causing drugs, has released a list called the “Dirty 100” that includes a group of nuns.
The list, which consists of organizations that have filed lawsuits against the ACA, features the Little Sisters of the Poor as a “dirty” organization.
The Little Sisters of the Poor dedicates themselves to serving impoverished elderly people with “grace of hospitality toward the aged poor.” The group operates 200 homes on five continents and serves over 13,000 residents. The nuns who work in the order live communally and take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and hospitality.
The Little Sisters of the Poor were not the only groups that the National Organization for Women says are “dirty.” The list included Priests for Life, a pro-life group that also advocates against the death penalty and 12 Catholic dioceses.
NOW, one of the largest pro-abortion groups in the country, wants to see a significantly expanded mandate for contraception imposed on all businesses than what is in the Affordable Care Act.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian college is not required to cover emergency contraceptives it believes causes abortions.
The court ruled 6-3 to allow Wheaton College temporary relief from the birth control mandate while the case makes it’s way through the lower courts. The court’s three liberal women justices objected to the injunction, saying that a Christian school should be forced to provide abortion-inducing drugs.
The school had been required under the health care mandate to sign forms allowing a third party to provide the abortion drugs. The school says that permitting someone else to provide the service inherently makes them complicit in allow the abortion drugs to be given to end the lives of babies.
Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writing for the three liberal justices in their dissent, said making Christians pay for abortions is not a “substantial” burden on their religious beliefs.
“Let me be absolutely clear: I do not doubt that Wheaton genuinely believes that signing the self-certification form is contrary to its religious beliefs. But thinking one’s religious beliefs are substantially burdened — no matter how sincere or genuine that belief may be — does not make it so,” she wrote.
While the Supreme Court ruling for Hobby Lobby was a major victory for Christian business owners, other lawsuits against the mandate continue to move forward dealing with other questions related to the mandate.
The Little Sisters of the Poor are continuing in their case against the Obama administration’s demand the Sisters sign an “accommodation” to the mandate that their employees can use to obtain contraceptive coverage. The Sisters say that accommodation makes them complicit in something that goes against their faith, namely, abortion.
However, the ruling makes the lawyers for the Sisters believe the court will favorably view them.
“The court’s language indicates the accommodation’s days are numbered,” Daniel Blomberg, legal counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told the Christian Post.
Blomberg says that he feels confident the court will carry the logic through to his case.
“When it comes to complicity, the government doesn’t get to decide, the religious believer gets to decide,” Blomberg said.
While millions of American Christians are celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision protecting religious freedom, one prominent Baptist pastor is cautiously warning that the celebration of freedom may be short lived.
Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas says that while the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling “stopped the greatest attempted assault on religious liberty in history”, the case is a sign that the government is going to increase attempts to strip away the religious freedom of Christians.
“The Obama administration was basically saying that you can be religious and pro-life in your church, synagogue or at home on the weekend, but when you go to work on Mondays, you have to give up those beliefs and become pro-abortion,” Jeffress said to the Christian Post. “There is no such thing in the Constitution as the separation of faith from the rest of your life.”
Jeffress said that the mainstream media and pro-abortion activists have been repeating the complete lie that those who want to protect the life of unborn children are nothing more than religious fringe extremists.
“It is a part of the belief system of tens of millions of Protestants, Catholics, Jewish people and people of all faiths,” he said. “This country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. In this ruling, I think the court is very sound in saying that we have the right to uphold and exercise those beliefs.”
In a major victory for religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that “closely-held” for-profit businesses can cite religious objections in order to opt out of a requirement in the Affordable Care Act to provide free contraceptive coverage.
The court’s decision came in the case of Hobby Lobby, the company that also owns the Mardel Christian Stores chain. The owners of the company said the health care law forced them to violate their religious faith by providing drugs that can induce abortions.
The challenge was the first major case related to the President’s signature law in the last two years.
The Supreme Court held that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects the rights of for-profit businesses if they are run on a basic of religious principles. However, the Court’s ruling noted it was specifically applied only to the health care law and did not automatically mean other instances of religious issues and health care would be invalid.
The Obama administration had argued that the case was not really about birth control but rather a way that for-profit businesses could challenge other laws based on religious rights.
The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in favor of a pro-life group that wanted to challenge an Ohio law that put them at risk for a lawsuit if someone felt their political ads were “false.”
The Susan B. Anthony List had sued a now-former Democratic U.S. Congressman who had claimed the group lied about him in a campaign ad that said he supported taxpayer funded abortion because of his support of the Affordable Care Act. While the Congressman dropped his complaint against the group under the Ohio law, the group sued to say the law was unconstitutional.
The group said that the lawsuit by former Rep. Steve Driehaus also violated the group’s freedom of speech. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled the group had no standing to pursue a lawsuit because the suit against them had been dropped after the election was over.
The ACLU, a very anti-life legal group, surprised observers by backing SBA List in the case.
“Speech is rarely black and white,” an ACLU spokesman said. “If the government silences one side of the debate, the public is less informed and others might be fearful of criticizing elected officials. The answer to unpopular speech is not less, but more speech.”
Anti-life groups said the case is about the “right to lie” despite the fact the SBA List has shown the Affordable Care Act includes multiple abortion funding provisions.
A federal judge has granted a temporary health care mandate injunction to close to 200 Catholic employers.
The preliminary injunction says the employers do not have to provide coverage for contraceptives, especially those that cause abortions, and will not be subject to all fines and penalties for not providing those items.
The Catholic Benefits Association filed the lawsuit against the Obama Administration’s “Affordable Care Act” in March claiming it violated their religious freedom.
“The harm posed to these plaintiffs absent relief is quite tangible-they will either face severe monetary penalties or be required to violate their religious beliefs,” U.S. District judge David Russell wrote in his ruling.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs were very pleased with the ruling.
“This ruling is especially gratifying because this lawsuit, alone among the HHS contraceptive mandate cases, includes three groups of Catholic employers-“houses of worship” that are, by regulation, exempt; non-exempt ministries like colleges, Catholic Charities, and healthcare institutions; and Catholic-owned for profit businesses,” Martin Nussbaum, CBA General Counsel, told CNS News.
A federal court has ruled the Department of Health and Human Services cannot enforce the birth control mandate on two Christian colleges.
The court ruled Dordt College in Iowa and Cornerstone University in Michigan are exempt from the mandate while their appeals work their way through the federal court system.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett said in his ruling that to impose the mandate would likely cause “irreparable harm” to the colleges because it would be “to the detriment of their religious exercise.” He said the colleges are likely to succeed in their cases on the merits and that if the courts rule against the colleges the worst that can happen is that it would take a few more months to implement the policy.
Judge Bennett said that he is also delaying a ruling in the case because of the similar cases before the Supreme Court with Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods. He said the decision of the court will likely have a direct impact on the case and his ruling.
A ruling from the court is expected later this summer.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, who is defending the colleges, said the decision was sound because Christian colleges should have the right to behave according to their religious convictions.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz told the students at Liberty University’s convocation to stand up for their faith because Christians in America will be facing increasing attacks.
Cruz said that religious freedom in America “has never been more imperiled than it is right now.”
“Religious liberty has never been more under assault,” Cruz said, “As believers we are called to action, not to sitting quietly hiding our faith under a bushel, but to stand and speak no matter what the consequences.”
Cruz pointed out the mandate by the Obama administration in the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to cover drugs that can induce abortions as an example of the erosion of religious freedom in America. He said the current case at the Supreme Court involving Hobby Lobby is not about birth control but whether the government can “force people to violate their religious freedoms.”
Cruz spoke about two pastors who have been imprisoned because of standing up for their faith and said they were example for the students: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Saeed Abedini.
