This is nonsense. The rights of women are not being affected. Nobody is saying they can't get whatever birth control they want. Hobby Lobby just doesn't want to pay for abortion inducing forms of birth control.

This is not rocket science. Hobby Lobby doesn't want to be involved in paying for abortion-inducing forms of birth control. Vasectomies are not abort-inducing. Hobby Lobby has and will continue to pay for non abortion-inducing forms of birth control. Why is it so difficult to see the distinction? This is not really all that difficult to understand.

That seems consistent with what I understand their beliefs to be, no? They're not against birth control per se, but against drugs that act once conception has taken place.

But corporations also must abide by all applicable Federal and State laws, so they don't have the right to fully decide how to run their businesses. The Hobby Lobby owners felt strongly enough about this to pursue it and get the law changed, and I personally don't have a quarrel with it except for the "can of worms" aspect as noted by Judge Ginsburg.

Not to put words in Redwitch's mouth, but this may be what she was alluding to -- that this opens the door for any privately-held company owned by zealots of any stripe to claim that they shouldn't be forced to comply with XYZ law because of their own religious or moral beliefs. And their beliefs could be any danged thing. I don't think that's gonna happen because, well, judicial bias comes into play again.

[Gah, sorry to rehash. I just realized I missed a page of posts, so some of this has already been said.]

We'll said Gracie but to get my 2% in, I love Hobby Lobby and admire their stance! I don't expect everyone to agree with me, even though I'm right!:pepper2:

They have no expectation for employees to convert to their beliefs; just for the government not to expect HL to convert to Obama's beliefs.

There is a legal difference between a publicly traded corporation and a closely held family corporation. That was a key determinant of this case.

I think what all this really comes down to is what one believes an employer is responsible to provide in your life. I never really expected much more than a fair wage for a fair day's work. Anything else was a bonus.

I agree 100% but it seems, .....the times! they are a changin.

Enforce the Law as written.
 

I take a different approach to analyzing this decision.

1. Critics of the decision object to the view that a corporation should be regarded as a "person." However, it is long established law that a corporation has legal standing as a person.

2. As I understand it, the decision relied heavily upon the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, signed into law by President Clinton, which applies "to all Federal law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise", including any Federal statutory law adopted after the RFRA's date of signing "unless such law explicitly excludes such application."

The law is aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person's free exercise of their religion.

Apparently the writers of Obamacare failed to "explicitly exclude" application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to Obamacare, so the rights of the "person" (Hobby Lobby) were preserved in this case.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, Hobby Lobby's insurance does provide for sixteen different methods of birth control. What they objected to paying for was four methods that destroy a fertilized egg, which they regarded as abortion, contrary to their religious beliefs.

The issue was not about birth control, but about abortion.

3. People who object to the decision based upon concerns about employers whose religious beliefs might make them object to paying for insurance that provides blood transfusions, etc. miss the point.

The point is that the law as currently written was followed. That is what the Supreme Court is supposed to decide.

What might the court decide in a future case about other closely held corporations with different religious beliefs remains to be seen. It could take years for a similar case to work its way up through the lower courts to the Supreme Court.

If it is foreseen that the law as currently written and enforced could have extremely negative consequences in the future it is the duty of the Congress to change the laws, not of the Supreme Court to make a decision contrary to current law.

.

We're certainly familiar with those. :)

At last soeone who really understands and has the ability to verbalized what many of use have failed to articulate. Thank you Carl.

Bonanza - Would you be so good as to provide the website where you read the supreme court decision that allowed you to form the opinions you stated in post #92. I would like to read it and try to understand where your thoughts were formed.

Would also like to know which IUD does NOT prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Thanks

OK, lets go point-by-point.

1) IUDs actually prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg and are therefore as much of a form of abortion as the morning after pill.

2) Abortion is a form of birth control, not one that is acceptable to the owners of Hobby Lobby.

3) I suspect that vasectomies are covered by Hobby Lobby's health insurance plan. It is not a form of abortion.

4) The Supreme Court made a ruling based on an existing Law - The Religion Freedom Restoration Act. That is what the Supreme Court does - they interpret the existing laws. They don't make new laws - that is the role of Congress. If you want Hobby Lobby to have some specific requirements to do business with the Chinese you should right your Congressman and Senator because the Supreme Court has nothing to do with that.

5) According the Law and the interpretation of the Law by the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby has every right to decide not to pay for abortions. If you don't like the Law, write your Congressman and Senator.

6) Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court are not making any decisions about woman's health. They are simply saying that when it come to abortion inducing forms of birth control they aren't going to pay for them. An employee of Hobby Lobby is free to purchase those on their own.

Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision: Alito’s argument is stronger than Ginsburg’s.

Here's an article by a U of Chicago Law Professor that discusses the Hobby Lobby case.

I would like to see one written by a female Law Professor though.

Here are some more opinions by leaders in the Law Profession on this decision-- http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/06/30/...-lobby-ruling/

Thanx for that response, Bonanza, it explained everything I needed to know. Since you know as little about the Hobby Lobby decision as you know about women's reproductive health, perhaps you might try reading this pdf file of the decision: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/im...3-354_olp1.pdf [copy/paste the link into your browser]

It probably won't change your mind but it should change your awareness of what the real issues were in reaching the decision. The Judges words are the facts as opposed to the sound bites and rants of the talking heads you have listened to. The Judges were playing to the law - talking heads are playing to an audience they want to attract and/or keep.

[PS If you believe H.L. provides incomplete health ins for women because it will not pay the premium for 4 types of contraceptive care, know that the ACA also then provides incomplete health ins for women since it requires coverage for less than all of the contraceptive medications that are available to women.]

I am not an attorney. My understanding of the decision is not that it was in any way at all as claimed by post Carl an abortion case. It was a case that said the provisions of the ACA requiring all qualifying insurances to cover a particular list of services including woman's health services should or should not be enforced. The law Carl mentions giving religious exemptions was narrowly constructed and was passed before the very recent and very controversial (and I believe wrongly ) Citizens United finding that corporations are people for purposes well beyond what had been anticipated. Of course the RFRA did not include language saying anything about corporate religions as no one anticipated such a need. For a cogent explanation of the over-reach of the Robert's court in using the Religious Freedom act to set aside not only earlier Supreme Court findings but several cases that have been heard since that law, see
After Hobby Lobby, there is only RFRA. And that’s all you need.

And of course that narrowly made Hobby Lobby ruling that Alito said was made only because the Federal government already had made religious accommodations for what I will call "real" religious institutions like the catholic church by providing a separate mechanism for getting women's health covered without the employer having to provide it. Well it took an entire 24 hours for the court to completely ignore that declared important point. I am going to block quote a very significant explanation. It is clear why all three women on the court are furious

" The court didn’t say that the government could never require a company to do something that violated its religious beliefs, but rather that the government had to use the “least restrictive alternative.” That means that if there is a slightly less burdensome way to implement the law, it needs to be used. To prove that the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate was not the “least restrictive alternative,” the court pointed to a workaround in the law for nonprofits: If there are religious objections to a medical treatment, third parties will provide coverage to the employees.Yet in an unsigned emergency order granted Thursday evening, the very same court said that this very same workaround it had just praised was also unconstitutional, that this workaround also burdened the religious freedom of religious employers. Overnight, the cure has become the disease. Having explicitly promised that Hobby Lobby would go no further than Hobby Lobby, the court went back on its word.

If you wish to better understand the issue in Wheaton here are some links:
Wheaton College injunction: The Supreme Court just sneakily reversed itself on Hobby Lobby.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/us...lege.html?_r=0

In Hobby Lobby the court held that a corporation with a religious objection because that corporation would tell the government it did not want to cover services and then the government would provide the way to get those services covered outside of the corporation's insurance. In Wheaton the court held that an organization can not be compelled to even notify the government that it is not providing the ACA mandated services thus there is no way for the government to alternatively provide women's services. A complete reversal of reasoning.

blueash - Wheaton is not a determination as is Hobby Lobby; Wheaton was granted an injunction so that Wheaton does not have to provide the notification while the case works its way thru the legal process. And it is not to be said that Wheaton will receive the same consideration and decision. "Yesterday’s order and others sending cases back to appeals courts for reconsideration does not mean that companies are going to get blanket exemptions, as dissenting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in Hobby Lobby, from any law “they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” " [http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfi...ts-own-logic/]

Do you have any resources from the conservative side or a middle-of-the-road opinion for analysis or just the left wing side of the issue? It would be interesting to read those points of view. The sources you cite fail to highlight the numerous qualifiers that are part of the Supreme Court decision in making this decision one of very limited scope.

Hi buggyone: past is prologue to the future. From the Civil rights Act of 1964 to The Endangered Act to the Dept of Education, Energy, EPA IRS ad nauseam government has through tax policies and regulations stepped on our freedoms so much so that I find myself singing "Do You Hear The People Sing"?

Powerful forces have said out loud that people are bad at choosing and so we must choose for them.

While HL ended up denying a selected few abortion pills/remedies it left available birth control RX.

From an economic position i don't want to pay for someone's birth control and more importantly I don't want the government to tell anyone it has to be paid/covered under a policy of insurance. Because if the government can do that then in time they will nimble away until they can force someone to abort.
You say no the explain ACA

I want government out of my life and out of my back pocket because everything they touch turns to :yuck:

Opportunist will paint this HL decision as the war on women. and the unfortunate truth is that the electorate is so divided or so unsophisticated
that they buy in to propaganda .

Freedom is a very delicate balance and far too many Americans take it for granted

In today's world, health insurance is very much a part of a person's salary.

A bonus is a whole 'nother story.

.

I was fortunate to work for a large company that provided my health insurance, not health care - I paid for my on birth control pills. That is my only point. Didn't expect them to be responsible for my sexual activities.

And I can promise you with Obamacare that insurance provided by companies will not be so available - in some cases costs less to pay the penalty than provide the insurance.

Bonanza - I guess you forgot the headlines like these:
UPS to drop 15,000 workers' spouses from insurance, blames Obamacare - Aug. 21, 2013 and
UPS, UVA Drop Health Care Coverage for Spouses of Employees - California Healthline and
Target to Drop Health Insurance for Part-Time Workers - Bloomberg

There are lots more stories about companies in "today's world" who are revising their company offered health insurance benefit coverage DOWNWARD; you can read them if you do an internet search on 'drops health insurance'. So It seems there are 'salary' decreases in store for lots of folks.

I am a career woman who began her career in the early 60s. It was really rough for women to get ahead then..virtually impossible. Bonanza, I have learned that anger gets you nowhere. Work and be proactive towards to end you hope to achieve.

and here is the important line from your link:

In an undated memo to employees, UPS (UPS) said it will discontinue coverage for all working spouses who are eligible for insurance with their own employer


This stops the practice of a spouse having double coverage via their own and their spouse's employer both being available. If the spouse is either not employed or not eligible for employer based health insurance then spousal coverage is provided by UPS Thus no one is loosing coverage. No one.

and
and from that one:

, both will stop providing health care coverage to employees' spouses who can obtain insurance through their own employer

and
and from the Bloomberg article a very careful explanation that fewer than 10% of its part time workers signed up for Target health plans and that was significant as under the ACA if you are eligible (not if you are covered) for an employer plan you cannot get the subsidy that is used for lessening the cost of insurance via the exchange. So the whole story is that many millions of Americans who were uninsured now have health insurance because of the ACA. Some lost double coverage. Overall that sounds like a great big win for America

LOL, Bonanza! This post just emphasizes the fact that you really do need to read the decision! Justice Alito did write the decision - based on law and not on personal opinion.

Will not converse with you further on this topic for fear of raising your blood pressure and because the talking heads have already filled your head with their talking points. Ciao.

blueash - Yes, those are important points. Not having the spouse's coverage as secondary coverage therefore places a greater stress on the spouse for having to pay more money out-of pocket for medical expenses. And that reduces their disposable income for other things that families need. Not a big win for them, eh? How many practitioners accept ONLY the amount that an insurance plan pays and does not bill the patient for the remainder of their customary costs.

And then there is the fact that more Americans have health insurance under obamacare because of the expansion of medicaid, or they were forced off their employer's coverage and had to subscribe to an exchange plan [some of the latter group paying higher deductibles and copays]. Or, as a part of the 'whole story' re coverage, they did obtain coverage because of the benefit of a subsidy.

Now go and do that internet search and read more of the

I don't know where you keep coming up with the statement that it's OK for a man to receive insurance that pays for his Viagra. It you are talking about Medicare or ACA, that is ABSOLUTELY false. Medicare specifically excludes all drugs for erectile dysfunction, and the ACA does not mandate coverage for ED. My bet is that drug coverage for ED medications is either rare or non-existent under any insurance policies and certainly not government mandated like ACA mandated birth control.

hwww.planprescriber.com/medicare-part-d/viagra/

Does Medicare Cover Viagra Cialis? - 2014 Insurance Library

Since this thread was about the Supreme Court's ruling I assumed you were talking about government mandated birth control and ED medications. I'm not sure that Hobby Lobby's religious views exclude sex, so I don't see your statement as particularly relevant to this thread. What Hobby Lobby chooses to insure beyond the government mandate is their business.

Time to wind up.
 

If that's the best you can do, I think this thread has about run its course.

How the justices reached their opinion has been fully documented, quoting the law.

Resentment toward the winners is just whining.

.

And very proud to be one! I was BlueAsh's post (#65) that said that Medicare covered Viagra. I confused it with your similar statement. I noticed that you didn't bother to correct BlueAsh, but I understand - you had so many of your own misstatements to correct.:laugh:

Bonanza, bravo! I have always been offended that a man has any say in what I do with my body, including abortion. It is my decision, not a corporation's or even the Supreme Court. My generation fought too hard for the rights my daughter and granddaughter enjoy to let us slide back. This has all come about because of the members of the Supreme Court and women would be wise to consider this in presidential elections. In my opinion, men should have absolutely no say in my reproductive rights. It is ironic that conservatives are forever talking about individual rights but hide behind religion like a shield.

People continue to confuse the Supreme Court ruling with woman's rights. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court only said that Hobby Lobby is not required to provide 4 (out of 20) forms of birth control that are considered to be abortions. Employees of Hobby Lobby are free to use those 4 forms of birth control. Nobody has said anything about or restricted your reproductive rights. Lets get a grip on the facts. The fact that someone doesn't want to pay for something is far different than not being allowed to do something. Got it? You can take abortion-causing drugs. I am sorry if you feel so entitled that other people must pay for aspects of your life, such as abortions. I personally am offended that my tax dollars are used (via subsides to Obamacare) to pay for contraception and abortions. People should pay for their own recreational activities. And while we are on the subject, please don't equate ED drugs with abortion-causing drugs. ED is a disease that is treatable. Pregnancy is not a disease.

People should pay for their own recreational activities. If they have ED and can't participate in their recreational activities, they should pay for their own treatment. In fact, ED would aid in birth control and reduce the cost of health care for terminating the pregnancy or carrying it to term.

NOT!