The Hobby Lobby Decision

I've seen a lot of discussion about the Hobby Lobby decision, about how they’re against women, they’re denying birth control to women while they still allow similar drugs/procedures for men, how they are imposing their religious views on everyone else, and so forth. I’ll address each in turn. I of course am not involved in any way in Hobby Lobby's corporate operations, so I cannot speak with any authority on what their intentions or motivations were, but I have reviewed the majority opinion from the Supreme Court, which can be read in full (if you have some time and a few brain cells to kill) here. The first four pages of the majority opinion, however (pp.7-10 of the pdf) summarize the court's rationale very nicely. My observations follow:

1. “The case was based on hatred of women or was against women’s birth control”

The question before the Supreme Court focused strictly on four post-conception drugs (RU 486 being an example) that in effect chemically induce an abortion. Other forms of birth control like birth control pills, IUD’s, etc. were not even dealt with in the case. Therefore, the idea that HL and the other companies involved in the suit were against birth control, or even specifically against birth control for women, is false. The challenge to the law was about companies being mandated to finance coverage for abortions; it was not about birth control. Furthermore, the fact that HL is, according to some articles, still covering vasectomies for men is therefore irrelevant. They were not objecting to birth control for women, just drugs that induce abortion. Granted, some people will find the opposition to abortion every bit as unpalatable, but nonetheless, the rhetoric that claims that the case was built around a hatred of women, it was against birth control, etc. is not supported by the facts of the case. 

So far as the blame for any damage done to this provision of the "Afordable Care Act" (ACA) requiring employers provide health care coverage, I say it rests on the shoulders of the lawmakers who passed the law, not on HL et al or SCOTUS. If Congress had not overreached by including these four specific medications, despite knowing at the time that including them in the mandate would be controversial and would probably be challenged in court (there was plenty of talk about it at the time, so much so that policy makers gave in so far as to allow an exemption for religious organizations), then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now. The birth control provisions, without these four medications, would have probably not been challenged, and the provision would have stood, at least so long as the ACA remained in effect. (I have addressed my issues with the ACA in general in earlier posts; I won't go into them here.)

2. “They are forcing their religious beliefs on everyone else”

This logic is exactly backwards. By mandating that an employer act in a way that violates their religious convictions, under penalty of law, the government was violating the employers’ First Amendment rights. For an individual (or in this case a business) to chose not to participate in a particular behavior is not "forcing" their religious beliefs on others. Forcing religious beliefs on other people is coercing or requiring them by law to participate in behavior with which they do not agree. If anyone was being forced in this manner in this case, it was the plaintiffs, not the employees. 

I think a big problem here is that our understanding of “rights” has become corrupted.  To use the terminology used in the Declaration of Independence, we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. That means that we have the right to these things unimpeded by others or by the government. (The key word there is “unimpeded”.) We do not have the “right” to require others to enable us toward these pursuits. (The key word there is “enable”.) 

To use an admittedly imperfect example, I am a big believer in the Second Amendment, but my right of self-defense would not justify me to expect that my neighbors be required by law to pool their money to help me buy a firearm. This is a matter of passive vs. active involvement: the government (or my neighbors, except through consensual agreement such as a covenant provision in my deed that says “no guns allowed”) cannot hinder my free exercise of my rights as guaranteed under the Second Amendment. This is passive. But this does not mean that they must take an active role by financing my exercise of those rights. So in other words, my neighbors are not “depriving” me of my rights by refusing to give me money to go to the gun store. In fact, if anything, my requiring them to do so deprives them of some of their own rights. Is this equitable?

Going directly to the matter at hand, a lot of people hold the conviction (it isn’t solely a religious conviction, but for those who believe that way it certainly is a religious matter) that life begins at conception, and that the termination of a pregnancy literally deprives a human being of their life. Many of those who support abortion obviously do not feel this way, but it needs to be recognized that a very large number of people do, and many of them hold this as a religious conviction. Recalling my example above about my neighbors paying for my trip to the gun store, the person who does not wish to part with their own money for Smith & Wesson might object on the grounds that they just don’t like guns, or they might have stronger public policy concerns about the efficacy of allowing individual citizens to own guns, but it most likely will not rise to the level of a religious conviction. So if my neighbor’s rights are violated to some degree by my forcing them to pay for my self-defense needs, would it not be much more true that people with a strong religious conviction regarding abortion would have their rights violated by being forced to pay for the purchase of someone else’s abortion-inducing medication?

So the question at hand is this:  does an employer choosing not to pay for coverage for these medications deprive a woman of her rights? Is active enabling on the part of the employer a necessity in order for the woman’s rights to be honored, or is the employer only obligated in a passive sense, i.e. not actively preventing the woman from having access to these medications? What if taking an active role violates the employer’s religious convictions, thereby violating their First Amendment rights of the free exercise of religion? This was the basic question address by SCOTUS in the Hobby Lobby case. 

The merits of the case can of course still be debated. One thing that I think could be a potential issue in the future is the implications for the legal distinction that exists between the corporation as a legal entity and its owners as individual persons. However, when discussing the more incendiary aspects of the case, it is particularly important to take an informed position with regards to the facts of the case and with regards to what the decision does and does not address. Emotion frequently plays too great a role in political debate, often to the point that facts and logic are left by the wayside. Unfortunately, emotion grips people's attention, and political rhetoric heightens the emotional impact to the point that people become blinded to all else. Feeling strongly about an issue is a good thing, so long as it does not lead to the abandonment of truth along the way.