"By switching teams?"
Or, sticking with Monica sex. Of course, then she would demand "oral contraceptives".
Posted on 11/01/2013 10:25:55 AM PDT by jazusamo
A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the birth control mandate in ObamaCare, concluding the requirement trammels religious freedom.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most influential bench in the land behind the Supreme Court — ruled 2-1 in favor of business owners who are fighting the requirement that they provide their employees with health insurance that covers birth control.
Requiring companies to cover their employees’ contraception, the court ruled, is unduly burdensome for business owners who oppose birth control on religious grounds, even if they are not purchasing the contraception directly.
“The burden on religious exercise does not occur at the point of contraceptive purchase; instead, it occurs when a company’s owners fill the basket of goods and services that constitute a healthcare plan,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on behalf of the court.
Legal analysts expect the Supreme Court to ultimately pick up an appeal on the birth-control requirement and make a final decision on its constitutionality.
In the meantime, Republicans in Congress have pushed for a conscience clause that would allow employers to opt out of providing contraception coverage for moral or religious reasons.
The measure emerged most recently during negotiations to fund the federal government. Some House Republicans wanted to include the conscience clause in a legislative package ending the government shutdown.
The split ruling against the government on Friday was the latest in a string of court cases challenging the healthcare law’s mandate.
Friday’s ruling centered on two Catholic brothers, Francis and Philip Gilardi, who own a 400-person produce company based in Ohio.
The brothers oppose contraception as part of their religion and challenged the Affordable Care Act provision requiring them to provide insurance that covers their employees' birth control.
Refusing to abide by the letter of the law, they said, would result in a $14 million fine.
“They can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million, and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong,” Brown wrote.
The Obama administration said that the requirement is necessary to protect women’s right to decide whether and when to have children.
The judges were unconvinced, however, that forcing companies to cover contraception protected that right.
Brown wrote that “it is clear the government has failed to demonstrate how such a right — whether described as noninterference, privacy, or autonomy — can extend to the compelled subsidization of a woman’s procreative practices.”
She added that denying coverage of contraception would not undermine the Affordable Care Act’s requirements that health insurance provide preventative care.
The Gilardis’ employees will still be covered for a series of counseling, screenings and tests, she noted.
“The provision of these services — even without the contraceptive mandate — by and large fulfills the statutory command for insurers to provide gender-specific preventive care,” she wrote. “At the very least, the statutory scheme will not go to pieces.”
The two other judges on the panel disagreed with parts of the ruling and said the rights of religious people do not extend to the companies they own. They also disputed that the Gilardis were unduly burdened by the coverage requirement.
Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the ObamaCare mandate to cover contraception. People who work for religiously affiliated institutions can get birth control directly from their insurance companies.
— This story was updated at 12:52 p.m.
Praise God!
I don't believe she was involved in those rulings. Janice Rogers Brown is, however, the scumbag Democrats' worst nightmare. She is a black woman, and she is brilliant. And she is a conservative who takes the Constitution seriously. (Like I said, the scumbag rats' worst nightmare.)
The rats did everything in their power to stop her confirmation but she ended up getting confirmed following the "Gang of 14" negotiations back in 2006.
LOL! I hope she suffers apoplexy over this.
Hoy Lobby was on hold IIRC...this should filter down to them as good news!!
She might actually have to entertain the notion of abstinence.
The indignity of it all!
IIRC, there is no “severability” clause in the ACA... therefor by logic and reason, the ehtire law is unconstituitional... how does Roberts CJ save that?
Which insurance companies will now offer insurance without birth control coverage?
The White House will pressure them not to.
Three judge panel. At least two of them got to the same end, but perhaps via different routes.
Is birth control and abortion part of the law or part of a hhs rule permitted by the law? if the latter, then perhaps the rule can be ruled unconstitutional while not tripping the law and the severability clause... IANAL...
Women can choose to do whatever they want. Doesn't mean they should be subsdized by the employer.
"By switching teams?"
Or, sticking with Monica sex. Of course, then she would demand "oral contraceptives".
If the company is paying for it...of course it extends. If some want contraceptives.....REACH IN YOUR OWN POCKET !!!
I’m glad “free” contraception was struck down because it trampled religious freedom, but the law was a travesty regardless. To think the federal government has a constitutional right to tell insurance companies they MUST provide certain freebies as a price of doing business. That’s ridiculous.
This is like requiring auto companies to give “free” cars to minorities or McDonalds to hand out “free” Happy Meals to EBT holders as a price of doing business. I understand the reasons for doing so—buying the votes of single women mostly—but the precedent is jaw dropping. What other things can the federal government force businesses to give away in order to stay in business?
The answer, unfortunately, is pretty much what ever the political aristocracy in D.C. wants.
Text of a speech she gave in the year 2000. Worth reading the whole thing.
At this moment, it seems likely leviathan will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path. Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.
LOL!
We need to find out what embarrassing and/or criminal information Obama has on Roberts and all the other Supreme Court Justices so that it can be made public and negate the blackmail possibilities.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown...also said she didn’t give a Fluke if Owebama liked it or not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.