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Jennifer Merchant on the Burwell vs Hobby Lobby case

Jennifer Merchant, is a professor at Université Paris 2 and the author of De la constitution aux droits des femmes aux Etats-Unis: les fondements juridiques with Vincent Michelot (Sciences Po Lyon). She gave a talk on women's rights in the United States, especially on the issues of contraception and abortion.
Many cases dealing with the debate over contraception coverage by employers were taken to court, and each time, judicial responses have been very divergent. The "Burwell vs Hobby Lobby" case was taken to the US Supreme Court in 2014. It all started with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act according to which employers need to provide health care to their employees, covering in particular all forms of contraception. However, some for-profit corporations - such as Hobby Lobby - claimed that they would not accept to offer a form of coverage that conflicted with the employers' religious belief. Hobby Lobby objected to the financing of two types of emergency contraception: the morning-after pill and the intra uterine device (IUD). This refusal was based on the idea of human life after conception and the non-acceptance of abortion. To justify their position, employers claimed their right to exercize religious freedom in for-profit corporations according to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This act is about the right to disobey a law if it is in contradiction with one's religious principles.
In this precise case, one of the parties was the Hobby Lobby corporation, a chain of art-and-crafts stores founded by Barbara Green. When the company was asked in 2012 about their health laws, and especially concerning contraceptive mandates, Hobby Lobby director M. Green said he was not aware of his necessity to finance contraceptive means to his employees. As a devoted Baptist family, the Greens were even shocked by this decision. They relied on financial arguments to back up their choice of not providing emergency contraception. But on purely judicial groundings, they put forward the inadequacy of such action with their religious freedom and rested on the first amendment. They also argued that women should choose for themselves which contraception to use, and that this decision has nothing to do with the employers' opinion, since it could go against their religious beliefs.
So does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allow a for-profit compagny to deny its employees health coverage of contraception? Based on the religious objections of the corporation owners, the Supreme court came up with a "yes" answer. There are three major elements to the decision: first, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act can be interpreted within corporations since they are composed of free individuals - and should therefore have the same rights and privileges as the people; second, because the contraception coverage forces religious corporations to finance what they considered as abortion and that this action goes against their religious principles, the mandate creates a substantial burden on the employers; and third, this ruling only applies to the contraceptive mandate question and not to any other aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
However, the question of when is religious freedom under threat remains of paramount importance. On this matter, the US Supreme Court has held that there is no violation of the freedom of religion when an infringement of that right is an incidental consequence of law application. It also said that for-profit compagnies should not be considered as religious entities.
But to understand the impact of the "Burwell vs Hobby Lobby" case, it is crucial to read it alongside the court's other decisions on religious corporations that occurred in the meantime. It is necessary to bear in mind the free exercise clause of the first amendment. The debate over the access to contraception has now been taken over by the LGBT movement and the Afro-American movement as a defense of individual rights issue.

	Pages de Jean Kempf — Université Lumière - Lyon 2 — Département d'études du monde anglophone Atelier Amérique du Nord Droit des femmes : quel droit à l'intimité ? January 22, 2015 as reported by Héléna Bazin Jennifer Merchant on the Burwell vs Hobby Lobby case Jennifer Merchant, is a professor at Université Paris 2 and the author of De la constitution aux droits des femmes aux Etats-Unis: les fondements juridiques with Vincent Michelot (Sciences Po Lyon). She gave a talk on women's rights in the United States, especially on the issues of contraception and abortion. Many cases dealing with the debate over contraception coverage by employers were taken to court, and each time, judicial responses have been very divergent. The "Burwell vs Hobby Lobby" case was taken to the US Supreme Court in 2014. It all started with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act according to which employers need to provide health care to their employees, covering in particular all forms of contraception. However, some for-profit corporations - such as Hobby Lobby - claimed that they would not accept to offer a form of coverage that conflicted with the employers' religious belief. Hobby Lobby objected to the financing of two types of emergency contraception: the morning-after pill and the intra uterine device (IUD). This refusal was based on the idea of human life after conception and the non-acceptance of abortion. To justify their position, employers claimed their right to exercize religious freedom in for-profit corporations according to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This act is about the right to disobey a law if it is in contradiction with one's religious principles. In this precise case, one of the parties was the Hobby Lobby corporation, a chain of art-and-crafts stores founded by Barbara Green. When the company was asked in 2012 about their health laws, and especially concerning contraceptive mandates, Hobby Lobby director M. Green said he was not aware of his necessity to finance contraceptive means to his employees. As a devoted Baptist family, the Greens were even shocked by this decision. They relied on financial arguments to back up their choice of not providing emergency contraception. But on purely judicial groundings, they put forward the inadequacy of such action with their religious freedom and rested on the first amendment. They also argued that women should choose for themselves which contraception to use, and that this decision has nothing to do with the employers' opinion, since it could go against their religious beliefs. So does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allow a for-profit compagny to deny its employees health coverage of contraception? Based on the religious objections of the corporation owners, the Supreme court came up with a "yes" answer. There are three major elements to the decision: first, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act can be interpreted within corporations since they are composed of free individuals - and should therefore have the same rights and privileges as the people; second, because the contraception coverage forces religious corporations to finance what they considered as abortion and that this action goes against their religious principles, the mandate creates a substantial burden on the employers; and third, this ruling only applies to the contraceptive mandate question and not to any other aspects of the Affordable Care Act. However, the question of when is religious freedom under threat remains of paramount importance. On this matter, the US Supreme Court has held that there is no violation of the freedom of religion when an infringement of that right is an incidental consequence of law application. It also said that for-profit compagnies should not be considered as religious entities. But to understand the impact of the "Burwell vs Hobby Lobby" case, it is crucial to read it alongside the court's other decisions on religious corporations that occurred in the meantime. It is necessary to bear in mind the free exercise clause of the first amendment. The debate over the access to contraception has now been taken over by the LGBT movement and the Afro-American movement as a defense of individual rights issue.
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Jennifer Merchant on the Burwell vs Hobby Lobby case