Hobby Lobby: Decision Ignites More Fire Behind Anti-Birth Control Lawsuits
A Missouri state legislature is taking his fight against birth control to a new level in light of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which gave companies the power to deny coverage of birth control in their health insurance plans.
In July, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling in favor of the evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby, who objected to covering four out of the 20 variations of contraception provided under the ACA, or "Obamacare," due to their moral convictions.
Now state Rep. Paul Joseph Wieland and his wife are suing the Obama administration over the contraceptive coverage mandate because it could allow their three teenage daughters to get access to free birth control through their family insurance plan.
According to Wieland, if an employer can deny providing female employees with birth control access in their insurance plan due to religious beliefs, then he should be able to deny his teen daughters birth control for the same reason.
"The employees are to Hobby Lobby what the daughters are to Paul and Teresa Wieland," Timothy Belz, the attorney for the Wielands, told the three judges, reports MSNBC.
Belz added that making birth control more accessible under health plans was "as though the federal government had passed an edict that said that parents must provide a stocked unlocked liquor cabinet in their house whenever they're away for their minor and adult daughters to use, and Mormons came in and objected to that. It is exactly the same situation."
The owner of Eden Foods, an organic food producer, is also pursuing a lawsuit against birth control coverage in lieu of the Hobby Lobby decision. According to Erin Mersino, a lawyer who works for the conservative Thomas More Law Center and represents Eden Foods, Hobby Lobby ruling has opened the door for all religious employers to opt out of covering contraception in their health plans.
"Since the mandate directly forced plaintiffs to violate the tenets of their faith under penalty of multi-million dollar IRS fines, the Court found that a substantial burden existed," said Mersino to TPM. "Then the burden shifts to the Defendants, who under RFRA have to prove their actions further a compelling interest and use the least restrictive means. This is where the government failed to meet their burden."
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