"Hello Mr. Powers, allow me to introduce myself: Fl*ck, Sandra Fl*ck"
"Come again?"
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.
I really object to the use of the term “contraception”, when we all know that they are trying to force the policies to provide abortifacients, and/or abortion coverage.
That’s a whole lot different than what most people think of as contraception.
"Hello Mr. Powers, allow me to introduce myself: Fl*ck, Sandra Fl*ck"
"Come again?"
I’ll take a win.
Awesome, I need to copy that to my Facebook page, can u provide a link?
Good news, now we just wait on John Roberts, what in God`s Name will he say?
In clinical studies her face tested 38% more effective than Norplant...
LOL! I mean literally, LOL!
If this mandate gets tossed by SCOTUS, just be prepared for the Catholic Church to throw their support 110% behind Obamacare. The powers that be seem to like everything about it except this.
The judges were unconvinced, however, that forcing companies to cover contraception protected that right.
All of these years I thought that another individual’s rights ended where my nose began.
In other words his rights could not be a burden on me without my consent.
All of these years I was wrong and didn’t know it. Thanks to Obama the merciful I am now enlightened. /S
As I recall there must be a compelling public interest that can not be fulfilled in a less intrusive way for the government to force individuals to act against their religious liberties against there will.
It should be quite obvious to any intelligent person that contraception can be purchased by an employee at their own expense. It is also obvious that conception can be prevented by other than technological means (abstinence).
An individual can also pay for their own abortion if they wish to kill their unborn child. Forcing an employer to pay for this against their religious faith is the most dire of immoral acts I can imagine short of Chinas one child policy.
Great news!!!!
Sounds like the name of a rock group.
“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.
How much more so with Abortion!!!?
“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.
How much more so with Abortion!!!?
That won’t stop the blackmail. Roberts has adopted children who could be taken from him by Justice if the regime chooses to use what they have on the adoption process Roberts used. The process is not a secret, yet the unJustice department has not acted but that hangs over the pirate’s head and makes him ‘malleable’ for the regime to bend when it suits them.
this admin is not going to allow policies without that in them to be sold, anybody disagree?
He’s supposed to be Catholic, right. And he’s supposed to be straight too. LOL
Here’s the link to the D.C. Court of Appeals opinion on the Francis Gilardi v. HHS (13-5069) Case.
I just skimmed the opinion. Brown says that companies have no religious rights, but Gilardi's as living breathing human beings do; and their rights are offended and RFRA gives them a remedy. The judge that agreed with the judgment (which I see as a totally hollow and worthless win, the company has to comply with the law) said the company/individual distinction is nonsense in this case, as the company is an S-Corp. The dissenter says that law always trumps religion, and cites the Reynolds case against polygamy as authority.
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