Posted on 07/09/2014 2:21:27 PM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A pair of Democratic senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would overturn a recent Supreme Court ruling that defended the rights of private for-profit employers to opt out of providing insurance coverage for abortifacient drugs on religious grounds.
Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO) held a press conference Wednesday morning to announce the introduction of the bill, dubbed the “Protect Women's Health From Corporate Interference Act.” The bill would force for-profit employers to comply with the Obamacare birth control mandate, which requires business owners to provide employees and dependents with full, co-pay-free coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs, regardless of their religious objections.
The legislation was reportedly crafted after consultation with the Obama administration, which originally issued the mandate through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The mandate has spawned hundreds of lawsuits by religious employers, including the infamous Hobby Lobby case that led to last week’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision ruling the mandate unconstitutional.
“At a time when 99 percent of sexually active women in the U.S. have used birth control, five justices decided last week that a CEO's personal views can interfere with a woman's access to this preventive service,” Sen. Murray said. “They're tired of being targeted and are looking to Congress to right this wrong by the Supreme Court.”
While it would normally be impossible for Congress to simply “overturn” a Supreme Court ruling, Senate Democrats are pinning their hopes on the fact that the high court struck the HHS mandate down on the grounds that it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, without explicitly mentioning the First Amendment. The RFRA bars the government from “substantially burden[ing] religious exercise without compelling justification.” Murray’s and Udall’s bill would explicitly prioritize the birth control mandate above the RFRA, making it clear that religious rights are secondary to the law.
Murray and Udall were joined at the podium by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and NARAL president Ilyse Hogue, who both praised the legislation.
"With this bill, Congress can begin to fix the damage done by the Supreme Court's decision to allow for-profit corporations to deny their employees birth control coverage,” said Richards. “The Supreme Court last week opened the door to a wide range of discrimination and denial of services. This bill would help close the door for denying contraception before more corporations can walk through it.”
Hogue warned legislators that failure to support the legislation could have electoral repercussions. “Not only are women mobilized. Men are mobilized. Families are mobilized," Hogue said. In an earlier statement, Hogue said company owners who fail to facilitate free access to the full range of contraceptive options, including abortifacients, are guilty of “discrimination against women in the workplace.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowed to take quick action on the bill.
A companion bill will soon be introduced in the House of Representatives, but chances of it coming to a vote are slim. The Republican leadership in the House supported the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hobby Lobby, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) calling the decision “a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.”
The Senate version of the bill may also face an uphill climb, if enough Republicans decide to fight it. Although Democrats are the majority in the upper chamber, they do not have enough votes to break a filibuster.
In their 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court had dismissed arguments that businesses can be forced to pay for coverage for abortifacients.
"We must next ask whether the HHS contraceptive mandate 'substantially burden[s]' the exercise of religion," the justices wrote. "We have little trouble concluding that it does."
[ Grandstanding...
Will never clear the House. ]
This is just cynical pandering to their dummie base for 2014...
They can put “I voted against the horrible republicans to restore a woman’s right to choose” or some damned phrase in their campaign drivel...
So, apparently the “settled law” argument is dead and buried with liberals?
I am confident that the house will get right on this...
This is only about rallying their “maggots for souls” base.
Pity-Patty Murray has had free birth control all her life: Her face and her personality.....
Constiitutional stuff like that is meaningless to this mob of anarchists
Dead in the house.
This is just Democrats herding stupid herbivores to the polls.
This is just Kabuki Theatre. The house will never bring it up.
You must pay for the Jewish Showers and Ovens.
Pray America wakes up
we hope the House won’t bring it up
Fodder for all the Dem low information crowd. How is one unconstitutional law any more enforceable than another?
Time for the supreme court to hold these democrats in Contempt of court and send them to jail.
Harry Reid IS the Nuclear Option.
Too many years there in Searchlight breathing in the radioactive dust from the nuclear testing that was carried out in the 1950’s.
Late-life dementia from this radioactive exposure is affecting his judgment, perhaps more than could be explained by his embrace of “Progressive” principles (vague though they may be).
I don’t see why such a law could be Constitutional. It seems to be just passing the SOS again.
ever notice when SCOTUS gives a leftist opinion, the GOPE folds and calls it “settled law”? Leftists never ever give up
They`d need a Constitutional Amendment.
Let me get this right... The Supreme Court made a ruling. Democrats don’t like that ruling. Now they are drawing legislation to overturn that ruling.
Now when Obamacare was ruled constitutional we were told to live with it...it’s the law of the land...
When will bills be allowed to originate in the House as is intended?
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