WHERE NOT TO SHOP: These 71 Companies Don’t Want to Cover Your Birth Control Either
from April 2014.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Inc., the closely watched case in which the Oklahoma-based craft store chain has challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, requiring insurance policies to cover birth control without a copay. Hobby Lobby’s high-profile case may have nabbed most of the headlines so far, but it’s far from the only company that’s taking on the Obama administration over the mandate.
Since February 2012, 71 other for-profit companies have challenged the ACA’s contraceptive mandate in court, according to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The majority of these for-profit cases (46 in addition to Hobby Lobby’s) are still pending. Jump to the full list of cases by clicking here.
The plaintiffs maintain that the federal government, by requiring contraceptive coverage under the ACA, is infringing on their religious views. Like Hobby Lobby, many of these companies had already covered birth control under their insurance plans, but they oppose the ACA’s rules requiring health plans to cover contraceptives including the drug Plan B, which they argue causes abortions. The Thomas More Law Center, a law firm “dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians,” has filed 11 cases on behalf of 33 plaintiffs against the ACA contraceptive mandate. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the center asserts in an amicus brief supporting Hobby Lobby, protects employers fighting the mandate “from being forced, under threat of ruinous government fines, to fund products and services that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
More: IT’s Not Just Hobby Lobby: These 71 Companies Don’t Want to Cover Your Birth Control Either