Editor’s note: the views expressed in OP-ED columns do not neccessarily reflect those of the Long Beach Post, its staff, or its ownership. 

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) recently delivered a significant decision in the case of “Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al.”

The Court’s Slip Opinion can be found here and I encourage our readers to review it.

This case came about largely because Congress passed the “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993” (RFRA) which President Clinton then signed into law. The RFRA prohibits the federal “Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

Enter the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA)” which, among other things, prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create tens of thousands of pages of new federal government regulations including one that requires specified non-exempt employers’ group health plans to furnish “preventive care and screenings” for women without “any cost sharing requirements…”

In other words, ACA mandated that these employers make any of 20 specific contraceptives available to their female health-insurance subscribers at no cost to them.  

“Hobby Lobby”, a private, closely-held, for-profit corporation (and two other similar companies, Conestoga and Mardel) sued on the grounds that the ACA mandates violated the RFRA in the case of just four of the 20 listed contraceptives. Hobby Lobby provides access to the 16 remaining contraceptives and began doing so well before ACA ever required it.

Hobby Lobby’s objection is a purely religious…not a scientific…one. There is no scientific evidence in the record of the case to either undermine or support Hobby Lobby’s belief concerning the four specific contraceptives. Nor is any scientific proof required. The RFRA protects religious…not scientific…freedom.

SCOTUS decided, in a 5-4 split, that the ACA mandates in this regard do, in fact, violate the RFRA and, thus, can no longer be either required of or enforced against closely-held, for-profit companies. All non- and not-for-profit companies had already been exempted from this mandate within the ACA itself.

“So what?” some in Long Beach may say, “Why should Post readers care about this case? The closest Hobby Lobby to Long Beach is some 20 miles away, in Huntington Beach. So why should we care?”

Here’s why: the decision does not only apply to Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel. It applies to all private, for-profit, closely-held companies in the nation. There are, conservatively, hundreds of such corporations throughout Long Beach to which this decision directly applies.

Many across the nation -in both the public and private sectors- who disagree with this SCOTUS decision are extremely upset…

“Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of women employed by these companies.” – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest

“The religious owners of these companies have medically inaccurate ideas about contraception and abortion, and they now get to impose those ideas on the people who work for them.” – Salon.com’s Katie McDonough.

I strongly disagree with both of these representative sample objections.

The decision does not “jeopardize” anyone’s health. All it does is bring ACA into closer compliance with the RFRA. All it means is that if female employees of closely-held, for-profit companies like Hobby Lobby desire to use contraceptives, they can still do so. They will just have to pay for them or work for companies which provide insurance that does cover them. Is this truly that great a burden to place upon someone making personal and voluntary choices both about where they choose to work and the use of contraceptives? I don’t think it is.

The “medical accuracy” of the plaintiffs’ ideas are not at issue here. Their beliefs are, apparently, widely-held religious beliefs. Beliefs which RFRA was specifically written to protect and which ACA has since been proven to unreasonably intrude upon. Further, none of the plaintiffs are “imposing” anything on anyone. No one forces anyone to work for Hobby Lobby or any other closely-held for-profit company. No one at Hobby Lobby prohibits any of its female employees from using whatever sort of contraceptive she likes. Hobby Lobby already provides 16 of 20 contraceptives that HHS mandates and did so before any such mandates existed. Hobby Lobby -as an expression of protected religious belief- just doesn’t want to have to pay for four of them. Federal law, as interpreted by SCOTUS, makes it clear that Hobby Lobby and similar companies should not have to do so. I don’t think they should have to do so either.

One last point. The vast majority of the objections to this SCOTUS decision have come from the political left, and primarily from Democrats. This despite the rather inconvenient truth that RFRA is a law which: 1. Rep. Schumer, a Democrat, introduced, 2. The House -including *all* Democrats- passed unanimously, 3. The Senate –including all but one Democrat- passed 97-3 and, 4. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, then signed into law. How soon some Democrats appear to have forgotten the very law which their own political party championed.