Supreme Court to rule Monday in Conestoga Wood Specialties emergency contraception case

For Norman Hahn, the conservative Mennonite founder of Conestoga Wood Specialties, an anxious wait is almost over.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule Monday on the Hahn family's religious challenge to an Affordable Care Act requirement that employee health plans cover emergency contraception.

At stake is the Hahn family's ability to continue running their 50-year-old company according to the principles of their faith.

If the Hahns lose the appeal, 1,053-employee Conestoga Wood faces a fine of $100 per worker for every day it doesn't cover emergency contraception.

The Hahns, owners of the East Earl-based cabinet door manufacturer, object to paying for the morning-after pill and similar contraceptives, likening them to abortion.

Not expecting a good outcome. Abortion is popular. Immorality is rampant. Murder is acceptable. All this in the new America.

Actually, this is a major ruling. It is more than "abortion"; it is whether or not the 1st Amendment is still valid. Do we still have 1st Amendment rights in this country? That is the actual question being answered here.

It is actually the question being challenged in the Same Sex Marriage debate. Do people who disagree or oppose the idea of SSM still have 1st Amendment rights in this country; or, are they being abolished by political correctness of special groups?

This all ties in with the left’s desire to do away with freedom of religion (unless you are a Muslim jihadist). In the past few years, leftists have started talking about how they support “freedom of worship” - note, not freedom of religion. So, they might recognize your right to be against abortion or homosexuality and say something against those things in the privacy of your church building or home - but once you are in public you will be forced to support these things. There is no freedom of conscience for those who have the “wrong” ideas. And then the private sphere where the left allows “freedom of worship” will get smaller and smaller. Then the First Amendment will only be used to protect pornography. There won’t be any First Amendment protections recognized for religion or political dissent.

Indeed, any mere manmade measure will fail.

The touch of God is needed upon the people of a society if we are going to hope the society will be blessed. That would seem elementary and obvious, but I spent hours with wire-drawn arguments to someone that claims to be a Christian vainly attempting to persuade him that this is the case.

We can’t just cobble together any measures and expect success. God’s blessing has to support it, or sin will find a way to corrode it all.

As mentioned in related threads, please consider the following.

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Regarding questions of the constitutionality for any official federal government action, the first thing that the Supreme Court needs to look at is if the states have delegated to the feds, via the Constitution, the specific power to justify such action. And since this case involves both intrastate labor and intrastate healthcare, please note the following.

With the exception of the federal entities indicated in the Constutution's Clauses 16 & 17 as examples, entities under the exclusive legislative control of Congress, the states have never delgated to the feds, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate either intrastate labor or intrastate healthcare. In fact, here are historcal Supreme Court clarifications that the states have never delegated to the feds the specific power to legislatively address healthcare issues.

”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln, 1837.
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphasis added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.

It remains that all three branches of the unconstitutionally big federal government are corrupt. So I'm bracing myself for more perversions of the Constitution by activist justices regarding the Court's decision in this case.

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Tomorrow is the last day of this SCOTUS term. Orders are at 9:30, opinions are at 10:00. We'll get Harris v. Quinn and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Perdogg will try to put a live thread in breaking news and I'll ping you to it. (Thanks, Perdogg!) As always, SCOTUS Blog will be live-blogging. Stay tuned for a big day tomorrow.

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