Health Care and Contraception: Did the Supreme Court Get It Right?

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  1. Was the Supreme Court right to rule that the Affordable Care Act violated the religio

    • 1024
      No - The ruling allows bosses to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Besides, the Constitution grants religious freedom to individuals, not corporations.
    • 483
      Yes - The religious beliefs of company owners take precedence over their employees' right to have access to birth control.

140 members have participated

Should religious family-owned companies be required to cover contraceptives under their insurance plans? The high court says no.

I'm curious how you nurses feel about this? Please take a second to vote in our quick poll.

This is a highly political topic, I'd rather not turn this into a hot argumentative subject, so please keep your comments civil :) But please feel free to comment. Thanks

Here is an article on the topic:

Hobby Lobby Ruling Cuts Into Contraceptive Mandate

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In a 5-4 decision Monday, the Supreme Court allowed a key exemption to the health law's contraception coverage requirements when it ruled that closely held for-profit businesses could assert a religious objection to the Obama administration's regulations. What does it mean? Here are some questions and answers about the case.What did the court's ruling do?

The court's majority said that the for-profit companies that filed suit-Hobby Lobby Stores, a nationwide chain of 500 arts and crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a maker of custom cabinets-didn't have to offer female employeesall Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptivesas part of a package of preventive services that must be covered without copays or deductibles under the law. The companies had argued that several types of contraceptivesviolate their owners' religious beliefs. The ruling also covers a Hobby Lobby subsidiary, the Mardel Christian bookstores.

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.
Why can the owners incorporate to create legal distance between themselves and their business for financial reasons then choose to ignore that distance in order to apply their personal religious beliefs to the corporation so that their beliefs may be imposed upon the employees?

Why do those justices feel this expression of religious belief is valuable and relevant but the Native American use of peyote or cannabis is not(as they previously determined)? Why do the justices believe that this only very narrowly applies to contraception and not to other religious beliefs? Why does the SCOTUS view the religious beliefs of the corporation have more value than the religious beliefs of the employee or the the more value than the medical needs of the employee? Why did the SCOTUS allow this ruling to be made based upon junk science that wrongly identified some contraceptives as abortifacients?

Can we now sue for a rebate because our religious beliefs do not allow us to finance war and killing? Where are my tax dollars?

This. All this. Especially considering that the RFRA was intended to prevent acts by the state that proscribe an action (like draconian drug laws prohibiting religious use of cannabis) not to prevent individuals from exercising their rights to bodily autonomy. Let's It's against my religion to have children I can't properly care for. Let's also say that sex is part of my religion. The RFRA was intended to prevent the state from telling me I can't use birth control. It was not intended to let my employer determine my insurance coverage.

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.
Hobby Lobby only refuses to cover the kinds of contraception that destroy and already conceived human life. As nurses, we should understand the difference. I did not participate in the poll, because the wording is grossly misleading.

As nurses we should also understand that is not what they do

Specializes in Pedi.
Who, in this argument, is talking about the "judgement of God"? I've heard no mention of that from Hobby Lobby.

What on earth makes you think "gun laws" have anytyhing to do with "womens's rights"? I don't notice that being 'pro-death penalty' has any bearing on being "anti-woman" either. I am a woman. I have mixed feeling about the death penalty. I have a license to carry a concealed weapon, have training in its use (and I sometimes do carry it for self protection). I don't blame anyone but the perp for the killing of 20 innocent children in Newtown...but I don't think anti-gun legislation would prevent such occurances either.

If guns are banned, criminals, who break the law anyway, will still have them. They won't care if it's legal or not. Of course, I'm not very sensitive to what others may construe as "anti-woman". I think that it's mainly a political thing.

I hate to see groups catagorized or stereotyped and don't think it's much help in this discussion either.

This guy:

God will judge all of you that collaborated indirectly to a killing of an innocent.

Post #302. Note that I quoted it to mean I was responding directly to him.

This issue only came about with Obamacare and when HHS mandated contraceptive care through a Rule process. Contraceptive care was not apart of Obamacare's 1200 or so pages of verbiage. It would have never passed had it been. This RULE process came into conflict with an actual LAW (passed byCongress and signed by the president.) When a law comes into conflict with a rule made by an unelected administrator, the law has to win or we will have administrators working outside of the laws regularly. The ruling is a big win for the Rule of LAW and the Constitution. If you want a different outcome, work with Congress and the president to get a different LAW. Many of the posts about this thread are all emotional and have nothing to do with LAW.

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.
Good day:

Hobby Lobby covered 16 contraceptives prior to the case, and will continue to cover 16 contraceptives after the case. They, Conestoga Wood, and others did not want to be forced to pay for those types of contraceptives (four in number) that can cause an innocent baby in the womb to be aborted. If it is an issue of a personal decision, then it should be personally paid for as part of being a responsible person (my opinion).

emergency contraception is not an abortifacient and a fertilized egg is not a baby.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

MODERATOR NOTE:

This is one of those polarizing topics. Please debate the topic but remember to be respectful and polite.

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.
True, however is it accomplished, killing an embryo IS the most effective birth control. Can't argue with you there.

That is not what it does.

I have read that in medical circles (that should include us) that pregnancy doesn't start till implantation, therefore the morning after pill does not cause an abortion. junk science on the part of the complainant.

Hobby Lobby provides birth control as part of their benefits package. What they objected to was being mandated to pay for the morning after pill which is not birth control but an abortificant. There is a difference.
Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.
These are very sensitive topics and the media (liberal and conservative) has entirely missed the point. The finding of the court is based on the U.S. Constitution -the rule of law- not of individuals. Everyone of us has closely held beliefs, those beliefs are not central to the Supreme Court decision. It is simply too easy to divide ALL of us if emotions are the determinant in the argument.

Actually the decision was based on a flawed, biased, misogynistic interpretation of a statute that was never intended to be used to control women's reproductive health choices.

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.

*please reasearch how emergency contraception works. It is not an abortifacient.

I don't see anyone here basing their claims on faith instead of science.

We are going tit-for-tat about which science link proves our point about abortifacient or not.

I found figures that range from 180 million to 600 million sperm in each ejaculate. A copper IUD cannot kill them all instantly upon arrival in the uterus. BOOM! POOF! GONE!

In rare cases, when fertilization does occur, IUDs may also prevent implantation. I found this in information in most of the medical information I researched. I didn't go to Planned Parenthood or any conservative or "faith" link. Science journals only.

The hormonal IUD prevents fertilization by damaging or killing sperm and making the mucus in the cervix thick and sticky, so sperm have a more difficult time getting through to the uterus. It also keeps the lining of the uterus (endometrium) from growing very thick. This makes the lining a poor place for a fertilized egg to implant and grow.

The four abortifacients: (Plan B or "The Morning After Pill; Ella (similar emergency contraception; Copper IUD; IUD with hormones).

Another poster is right - this isn't about access.

It has been stated that HL refused to pay for the 4 contraceptives prior to the law that was requiring them to. So, this ruling is a matter of establishing an exception to a law that has come out requiring them to comprise their precedence. The thing is the employees knew how they felt about that from jump, and they worked for them anyway with no protest. Has anyone heard THEM complain about the ruling?? In addition I do not think they said they would not hire/employ anyone who used the 4 contraceptives, just that they would not pay for them.

My biggest concern is how this affects the ability of others who have always wanted to overturn the ACA to find minor loopholes to dance around compling with it. In my opinion health coverage should be provided by employers, that is just my opinion. Please do not kill the messenger...:unsure:

Specializes in TELE, CVU, ICU.

This isnt about abortion.

Your analogy is flawed but it reveals alot.

I wonder if you are this contemptuous toward your patients.

You're not understanding the concept of conscience.

Example: If you live in a country where a president believes that sex slaves (or human embryos in this case) are less than human, and killing them (abortion in this case) is not a problem, should you be forced to support the slave industry, regardless of how much your own business makes? Would you consider paying for slavery to be a direct involvement in it? Of course you would. And you wouldn't want to be forced to support the slave industry.

Furthermore, the federal government will pay to cover those forms of contraception not covered by Hobby Lobby. So all forms of contraception will be covered by one entity or another in which case it makes no practical difference who covers it.

Analogy: A Jewish deli should not be forced to sell pork just because Obama and his friends wants pork. Those who want pork, including employees of the deli, are free to use their federal food stamps to buy pork at another deli.

"So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God"

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