Narrow Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby underscores abortion-expanding Obamacare

National Right to Life ^ | Tuesday, July 1, 2014

[annalex]

 

ANALYSIS & BACKGROUNDER

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

To:     All Journalists & Interested Parties

From: Tatiana Bergum, Deputy Press Secretary
            (202) 626-8825 or mediarelations@nrlc.org

Re:      Burwell v. Hobby Lobby

National Right to Life Analysis:

Narrow Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby
underscores deeper abortion-expanding aspects of Obamacare

The National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s oldest and largest pro-life organization, today released the following analysis of yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Any part of the following analysis may be attributed to National Right to Life.

The ruling provides a modest victory for religious conscience rights. However, as explained further below, the ruling does not truly correct any of the major abortion-expanding problems created by Obamacare.

The five-justice majority rejected the Obama Administration's attempt to force family-owned for-profit corporations to directly purchase health insurance covering certain drugs and devices that violate the employer’s religious and moral beliefs. The Court held that this application of a provision of Obamacare violates a federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Court’s majority recognized the gravity of the moral and religious objections raised by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties in this case.

However, the Court left open the possibility that those objections might be satisfactorily resolved by a government mandate ("accommodation") that these employers' insurance carriers pay directly for the same drugs and devices. This leaves unresolved the status of many entities (including religiously affiliated schools, charities, and hospitals) with sincere religiously based objections to providing specific drugs and devices, who regard a federal mandate that requires them to take action to require their insurance carrier to carry out the same ends as differing only in form and not in substance from the original mandate.

Moreover, regardless of how the scope of the “accommodation” is defined by future rulemaking and litigation, it is difficult to discern what would prevent HHS from issuing a further expansion of its "preventive services" mandate to require that most employers also provide coverage for surgical abortions, or for doctor-prescribed suicide, that would be just as expansive as the contraceptive mandate.

In short, even with respect only to the "preventive services" component of Obamacare, the Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby comes nowhere near to correcting the heart of the problem, which is the overly expansive authority that the Obamacare law itself provides to HHS to define "preventive services." The other major abortion-expanding provisions of Obamacare, including the massive tax subsidies that will assist millions of Americans to purchase health plans that cover elective abortion, were not even issues in the cases just decided.

Only comprehensive legislative reform can cure the multiple abortion-expanding components of Obamacare – and such reform can only be accomplished with new leadership in the U.S. Senate and in the White House.

During the congressional debate over Obamacare, National Right to Life continuously warned against the abortion-expanding and health care rationing provisions of the bill. An archive of documents related to the abortion-expanding provisions of Obamacare is available here: http://www.nrlc.org/federal/ahc/obamalaw/. In March, National Right to Life’s Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics issued a report on how Obamacare is rationing access to life-preserving medical treatment, “The Affordable Care Act and Health Care Access in the United States” which is available here (with other supporting materials): http://www.nrlc.org/communications/healthcarereport.

For interviews on this analysis, or the abortion-expanding and rationing provisions of Obamacare, please contact the NRLC Communications Department at (202) 626-8825 or mediarelations@nrlc.org.

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

[annalex]

If you want to be on this right wing, monarchy, paleolibertarianism and nationalism ping list, but are not, please let me know. If you are on it and want to be off, also let me know. This ping list is not used for Catholic-Protestant debates; all confessions are welcome.

[annalex]

NOTE: I had to alter the title a bit in order to shorten it.

[Lawgvr1955]

Former Rep Bart Stupack can go to hell as far as I am concerned. Pro-life my arse.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Depressingly, this is right.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s a toehold in a war that has many challenges ahead of it.

The Lord can wipe out evil through His love. But people have to be willing to accept the love. Love by definition can’t be stuffed down an unwilling person’s throat.

As for Obamacare itself, here’s my hopeful prognosis — the Calvinball can only be kept up so long before Obamacare rots into a joke. Now will the joke be laughed off or will it be reverently enshrined, that is the question.

[Salvation]

Keywords “family owned” “closely held”

Is Hobby Lobby really a corporation or is it just a family owned and operated company

[annalex]

A politician is someone trained in appealing to the largest segments of the electorate without being obviously inconsistent. So we have pro-life Democrats and pro-gun rights democrats; or pro-gay Republicans. These are all puzzle pieces for them, not internal convictions. With Stupack, the pro-life piece fit so badly, the contradiction ended his career. He did not vote for Obamacare despite his convictions, he took on the pro-life piece of the puzzle and it fell out. Very few politicians can be trusted, either “pro-life” or pro-anything.

[Mrs. Don-o]

My understanding is that a "closely-held" corporation is considered to be one that has 5 owners or less. It's not a "publicly traded" corporation with multitudes of shareholders.

So this ruling really is very narrow-gauge. Nevertheless, it is the kind of "pin-prick" that can make the Grand Egotist in Chief explode. Always a Work of Mercy worth doing.

[annalex]

Yes, that is probably the narrowest.

[annalex]

Generally, a closely held corporation is a corporation that:

• Has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock owned (directly or indirectly) by 5 or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year; and
• Is not a personal service corporation.

The definitions for the terms "directly or indirectly" and "individual" are in Publication 542, Corporations. A closely held corporation is subject to additional limitations in the tax treatment of items such as passive activity losses, at-risk rules, and compensation paid to corporate officers.

IRS Q+A publication

Observe that this precludes Hobby Lobby for ever from seeking infusion of capital, whether or not the investor shares their values.

[johniegrad]

Stupak voted for PPACA, not against it. Was that a typo?

[annalex]

Yes, if I remember right, he voted for Obamacare after Obama gave him a promise of brightly colored trinkets.

What I am saying in 8 is that politicians wear convictions like hats. Just like someone in a sombrero is not necessarily a Mexican, so someone with a pro-life voting record is not necessarily pro-life: he just considered pro-life voting record a good accessory to wear.

[Lawgvr1955]

Perhaps your post auto corrected. But Stupak voted FOR Obamacare. As I said before, I consider him a hypocrite for his “pro-life” posturing.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s a beginning, though. Our most pressing question at this point is not what can go wrong, but what can go right — and working with providence to that end.

Nobody can invest in closely held corporations? That’s a technicality of current law. If being closely held becomes the new trend, Congress could modify this.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The situation of publicly traded would have to be treated separately if and when it arose. The USSC smiled on closely held corporations; it hasn’t yet frowned at other ones.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It’s interesting that if they try to trade more stock and get bigger via more investors, they lose their Constitutional right to the Free Exercise of Religion. Amirite?

[annalex]

I agree with you. I wrote this part badly:

He did not vote for Obamacare despite his convictions...

It was meant to be a double negation: "he voted for Obamacare not despite his convictions but because he had no convictions". See my 13 clarifying.

[annalex]

It is a beginning; I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade.

[johniegrad]

Thanx for clarifying. That’s what I thought you meant.