<p>Hobby Lobby comes down to one basic question. What does the Constitution protect- religious freedom or having one’s employer’s religion supersede your own. </p>
<p>Nothing gets to the Supreme Court if the question is simple - or simplistic. The cases which the Court accepts are usually those where there are two rights, and the Court must decide which one overweighs the other. </p>
<p>The government has the burden of proof (in the Hobby Lobby case) to show that the interest in having employer’s pay for employee’s birth control is so compelling as to override the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. There are other issues as well but that is the central one.</p>
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<p>I can’t help but keep remembering a certain scene in the movie Legally Blonde when I read this. Anyone else know what scene I’m thinking about?</p>
<p>The employer is a corporation. People have freedom of religion, but corporations do not. Do corporations pray, go sit in churches, mosques or synagogues, beseech the Deity, celebrate sacraments, fast for Ramadan, make one in a minyan? No, they do not, because corporations don’t have religions. Freedom of religion is for people.</p>
<p>Catholic hospitals are also corporations. So are many religious schools, religious newspapers. But I agree it is an issue. Will the court make a distinction between some constitutional rights, which corporations clearly have, and this one?</p>
<p>Catholic hospitals are corporations, but they are not Catholic corporations. Under law, they are formed as tax exempt healthcare corporations. They are not formed as religious organizations. As pointed out previously, they receive significant funds from the government (the average hospital’s receives about 40% of its revenues from the federal government), and are subject to federal and state regulation and oversight. Religions are not. Many patients and community members donate funds to not-for-profit hospitals for their healthcare missions. I doubt many Christians donate to Jewish temples. </p>
<p>The court has decided that corporations were people before so they could easily do it again. Also, as someone upthread pointed out BC services are a miniscule portion of the services provided at a hospital and the government can easily come up with a workaround plan. It will be a close call.</p>
<p>The court could make a distinction between closely held family corporations and publicly traded corporations. </p>
<p>Not providing a service usually isn’t a crime, though not stopping to render aid is.</p>
<p>The idea of requiring more of a corporation - employer - than an individual has become sort of a staple over the years but… how can an employer infringe on your rights, unless it removes your choice in the matter?</p>
<p>Catholic hospital. Don’t like it? Go somewhere else.<br>
I have a problem with the hypocrisy of demanding that the government stay out of your uterus but stay way IN all your other business, under the ruse of “safety”. But since we have to edit ourselves so heavily here, I guess that is all I am going to say about that. </p>
<p>@Razorsharp 10:25 post, you mentioned that birth control is not health care but related to behavior. Most diabetes, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, and orthopedic abnormalities are obesity related. In all but rare situations, obesity is a behavioral issue. Let’s add smoking related illnesses too as behavior issues. The problem with birth control being over the counter is that it requires FDA approval, another government agency influenced and controlled by politics. But I don’t want to say anything further and have this thread shut down. By the way, some health insurers cover Viagra and Cialis.</p>
<p>So, do you have health coverage? Well, it depends if you are a woman or not, depends on your doctor, who your doctor works for, your health insurer, your employer, what health care you need and possibly the beliefs of your pharmacist.</p>
<p>@TranguilMind: It isn’t that easy. In the Tulsa market, as an example, religious hospitals own more than 50% of the primary care doctors, control the high level NICU care, and controls more than 30% of the private insurance market. Most women don’t have the easy choice of going somewhere else. What other laws will religious institutions be allowed to evade? </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a question of the employer infringing on the employees rights. Rather, it’s a question of the law infringing on the religious freedom of the employer. But, I do agree there’s an odd contradiction between stay out of my business and provide me with taxpayer funded supplies. Sigh. </p>
<p>Every thread I click on seems to end up at Hobby Lobby, lately.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I can’t help but think back to how bad this looks on the religious community as a whole.</p>
<p>This is a mess.</p>
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<p>My taxpayer dollars, my rules. You want to make religious prohibitions in health care? Not with my money. </p>
<p>If these Catholic hospitals want to forswear taxpayer dollars, then they can deny all the contraception they want.</p>
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<p>Seriously… how do people not understand that hospitals are ** not regular businesses **</p>
<p>This isn’t a restaurant where you can just go next door. </p>
<p>No, apparently in this case you have to drive 40 miles. I do that every day.</p>
<p>Boutique medical is reported to be pretty lucrative. Scaling up to full service - with all the oppressed doctors likely available after this edict - seems doable.</p>
<p>And if you don’t have a car? Like me? Then it’s not so easy to drive 40 miles, is it?</p>
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You’d have to turn over every patty in the feedlot to find a “non-taxpayer dollar” in a hospital these days, Fang. </p>
<p>Funny how that’s worked out.</p>
<p>Good grief. When I was 18 years old I managed to get myself to a clinic on a bus and pay for the services I needed with money I earned waitressing, People these days are not very self-sufficient are they? It’s a shame.</p>