The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to President Barack Obama's health care reform law Monday by ruling that closely held companies can refuse payments to cover some types of contraceptives for their employees, CNN reported, in a case that weighs the religious rights of employers and the right of women to the birth control of their choice.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court's justices handed out a verdict that some family-run businesses, including the craft-store chain Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., have religious rights to deny insurance benefits for birth control and other reproductive health services which they might view as immoral. Safeguarding the religious rights of corporations "protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
Alito's majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The ruling carves a hole in Obama's biggest legislative accomplishment, the 2010 health-care law that the Supreme Court upheld two years ago, Bloomberg reported. More broadly, the decision marks an expansion of corporate rights, saying for-profit companies, like people, can claim religious freedoms under federal law.
While for-profit companies had contended that they should be able to refuse co-pay on the sincere claim it would violate owners' long-established moral beliefs, the Obama administration had argued the law doesn't cover corporations and the government's interests outweigh any religious rights corporations hold.
Eventually, the issue before the justices was whether Obamacare could mandate contraception coverage specifically for certain businesses that object for religious reasons, with the owners of Hobby Lobby, furniture maker Conestoga Wood Specialties and Christian bookseller Mardel arguing the Affordable Care Act violated the First Amendment and other federal laws protecting religious freedom since it forced companies to provide coverage for contraceptives like the "morning-after pill," which they considered equivalent to abortion.
The decision will most probably serve as a focal ruling for other pending challenges to the health law. "This case isn't that practically important, except for the employees and businesses involved. There just aren't a huge number of those," said Thomas Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog.com and a Washington appellate attorney. "But everyone can agree the social questions presented -- about when people can follow their religious convictions, and when people are entitled to contraception care -- are truly important," he said.
"Today's decision is a landmark decision for religious freedom," said Lori Windham, an attorney for Hobby Lobby. "The Supreme Court recognizes American families don't lose their religious rights" when they run a business.
