Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Back in March of this year—during oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby case—Sahil Kapur (Talking Points Memo) said he thought that the conservative Supreme Court Justices “appeared broadly ready to rule against the birth control mandate under Obamacare.” He added that “their line of questioning indicated they may have a majority to do it.” Kapur reported that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Alito “expressed no sympathy for the regulation while appearing concerned for the Christian business owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood who said the contraceptive mandate violates their religious liberty and fails strict scrutiny standards under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”
During oral arguments, Justice Scalia said, “You’re talking about, what, three or four birth controls, not all of them, just those that are abortifacient. That’s not terribly expensive stuff, is it?”
There are a couple of things I think Justice Scalia should know. First, the four contraceptive methods that Hobby Lobby objected to paying for—Plan B, Ella, and two intrauterine devices—are not abortifacients. They do not prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg into the uterus—which the owners of Hobby Lobby consider to be abortion. Instead—according to the Food and Drug Administration—the four contraceptive methods in question prevent fertilization of an egg. Second, the cost of intrauterine devices can be quite considerable—especially to a woman working for minimum wage or for a company like Hobby Lobby.
Plan B is also known as the morning-after pill. Ella, the week-after pill, actually works for just five days after unprotected sex. Both of these drugs are classified by the Food and Drug Administration as contraceptives. Neither is the same as the abortion drug RU486, or Mifeprex—which isn’t considered a contraceptive and isn’t covered by the new insurance requirements.
Plan B, Ella and the Cost of IUD’s
Susan Woods, a professor of health policy at George Washington University and a former assistant commissioner for women’s health at the FDA, has been frustrated by the constant references to Plan B and Ella as abortion-causing pills. She said, “It is not only factually incorrect, it is downright misleading. These products are not abortifacients. And their only connection to abortion is that they can prevent the need for one.”
Jamie Manson (National Catholic Reporter) said that the “reality is that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the IUD and Plan B work only as contraceptives. Since Ella is new to the market, it has not been studied as extensively. But as of now, there is no scientific proof that Ella acts as an abortifacient, either.” He added that there is only one drug approved to induce abortion—RU-486, which is not on the FDA’s list of approved contraception. He continued, “It is available only by prescription and no employer is forced to pay for it as part of an employee health plan.”
Manson said that it’s important to understand the biology of conception in order to “understand why scientists believe that the IUD, Plan B and Ella are not abortifacients.”
Manson:
…In order for a woman to become pregnant after sexual intercourse, her ovaries must release an egg (ovulation). Sperm can remain viable inside her reproductive tract for five days. Therefore, if intercourse takes place up to five days before ovulation or within two days after, both sperm and egg are viable and the egg cell can be fertilized.
Now, just because an egg is fertilized doesn’t necessarily mean that it will develop into an embryo. For that to happen, the fertilized egg must be implanted into the endometrium that lines the uterus. Implantation happens seven days after fertilization, if it happens at all. Scientists estimate that, at a minimum, two-thirds of fertilized eggs fail to implant. Some scientists estimate that the number may even be as high as 80 percent, according to Discover Magazine.
For this reason, according to the medical definition, a woman is not considered pregnant until the developing embryo successfully implants the lining of the uterus.
Regarding the cost of an IUD (New York Times):
The cost of an IUD, one of the most effective forms of birth control, is considerable. It requires a visit to the doctor, and a procedure to have the device put in place. Medical exams, insertion, and follow-up visits can run upward of $1,000. Without insurance coverage, it’s likely that many women will be unable to use them.
Writing for SCOTUSblog, Dawn Johnsen, a professor of law at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, said the following:
Hormonal IUDs can be forty-five times more effective than oral contraceptives and ninety times more effective than male condoms in preventing pregnancy, based on typical use. Finally, cost concerns often drive women away from a preferred method to less effective methods. Almost one-third of women report that they would change their choice of contraceptive method if cost were not a factor. That’s tens of millions of women.
Religious Beliefs Trump Scientific Research in Hobby Lobby Ruling
In July, Kapur wrote about the Hobby Lobby case again following the Court’s ruling. He said that when Supreme Court Justices had suggested back in March “that certain forms of birth control were abortion-inducing, nobody stood up to point out that the claim by Hobby Lobby lacked support within the medical community.” He added that “it came as little surprise that the 5-4 ruling against the Obamacare contraception mandate ignored the scientific research about whether those contraceptives actually cause abortion. The religious owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood believed it, and that was enough.” Justice Alito wrote for the Court, “If the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions”—“decreeing it a ‘substantial burden’ on free exercise of religion and thus in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” He also wrote, “The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients.”
After the Hobby Lobby ruling, Erika Eichelberger and Molly Redden of Mother Jones pointed out that the five justices who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby weren’t just overruling an Obamacare regulation, they were also overruling science.
But—as Kapur noted in his TPM article in July—“the justices weren’t legally required to consider the science. Quite the opposite: RFRA, a statute passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, grants special treatment under the law to religious people regardless of whether their beliefs are substantiated by evidence.”
On a segment of The Daily Show back in March, John Stewart said, “So let me get this straight.Corporations aren’t just people, they’re ill-informed people. Whose factually incorrect beliefs must be upheld because they sincerely believe them anyway.”
It isn’t just the Hobby Lobby folks and some Supreme Court Justices who appear ill-informed about certain contraceptives. After the Hobby Lobby ruling, Katie McDonough (Salon) wrote that some of the right’s talking points on Hobby Lobby were wrong and showed a misunderstanding of health insurance and sex.
McDonough:
On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly tried to see who could out-ignorant the other by shouting misinformation about how birth control works and the supposedly narrow scope of the ruling. Also on Fox News… Brit Hume concluded — with zero supporting medical evidence — that the four forms of contraception no longer covered by Hobby Lobby “amounted to abortion.”
While over at the National Review Online, editor Jonah Goldberg wrote that Hobby Lobby “objected to paying for what it considers to be abortifacients, which don’t prevent a pregnancy but terminate one. The pro-abortion-rights lobby can argue that ‘abortion’ and ‘birth control’ are synonymous terms, but that doesn’t make it true.” I’d respond to Goldberg by saying that the owners of Hobby Lobby may believe that the four contraceptives that it objected to are abortifacients—but that doesn’t make it true.
After returning from a two-week hiatus from The Daily Show on July 14th, Jon Stewart did a segment on the Hobby Lobby ruling. He found it interesting that the owners of Hobby Lobby consider Plan B to be an abortifacient—even though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say it isn’t. “But what would they know about vaginas?” said Stewart. “Compared to a corporation that sells foam cones and glitter.”
SOURCES
Morning-After Pills Don’t Cause Abortion, Studies Say (NPR)
What an abortifacient is — and what it isn’t (National Catholic Reporter)
Science Was Irrelevant In Hobby Lobby And That’s Congress’s Fault (Talking Points Memo)
Conservative Justices Appear Ready To Strike Birth Control Mandate (Talking Points Memo)
5 myths about the Hobby Lobby case, debunked (MSNBC)
How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control (New York Times)
Hobby Lobby’s Hypocrisy: The Company’s Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers
When Hobby Lobby filed its case against Obamacare’s contraception mandate, its retirement plan had more than $73 million invested in funds with stakes in contraception makers.
—By Molly Redden
| Tue Apr. 1, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers
Excerpt:
When Obamacare compelled businesses to include emergency contraception in employee health care plans, Hobby Lobby, a national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, the company’s owners argued, forced them to violate their religious beliefs. But while it was suing the government, Hobby Lobby spent millions of dollars on an employee retirement plan that invested in the manufacturers of the same contraceptive products the firm’s owners cite in their lawsuit.
Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company’s owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).
Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan have stock holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby’s health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Hobby Lobby
Everything you need to know about the high-stakes religious-freedom case that could redefine corporate personhood.
—By Stephanie Mencimer
| Fri Mar. 21, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-obamacare
Excerpt:
On many levels, the Hobby Lobby case is a mess of bad facts, political opportunism, and questionable legal theories that might be laughable had some federal courts not taken them seriously. Take for instance Hobby Lobby’s argument that providing coverage for Plan B and Ella substantially limits its religious freedom. The company admits in its complaint that until it considered filing the suit in 2012, its generous health insurance plan actually covered Plan B and Ella (though not IUDs). The burden of this coverage was apparently so insignificant that God, and Hobby Lobby executives, never noticed it until the mandate became a political issue.
Gig said: “In my research on Plan B, I found that it is designed to be a “morning after pill (MAP).” These MAP’s are considered abortion pills. The SC said that the four methods that Hobby Lobby was arguing to be disallowed in their case does in fact prevent an already fertilized egg from progressing. Our own government refers to these pills as a form of abortion.”
*****
How Emergency Contraception Works
Does emergency contraception cause an abortion?
http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/ecabt.html
Excerpt:
No, using emergency contraceptive pills (also called “morning after pills” or “day after pills”) prevents pregnancy after sex. It does not cause an abortion. (In fact, because emergency contraception helps women avoid getting pregnant when they are not ready or able to have children, it can reduce the need for abortion.)
Emergency contraceptive pills work before pregnancy begins. According to leading medical authorities – such as the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants in the lining of a woman’s uterus. Implantation begins five to seven days after sperm fertilizes the egg, and the process is completed several days later. Emergency contraception will not work if a woman is already pregnant.
BTW Annie et al,
The Catholic institutions did provide contraceptives, which was included in their health care HMO plans. They were placed there because the insurance company had it in the plan they offered. However, the argument in this forum is Abortion aides, which has never been offered by any Catholic facility that I am aware of..
Annie
If a person accepts a job from HL, that person accepts their conditions of employment. In the case of HL, their employees will continue to get FREE contraceptives, just not those deemed to be abortifacient.
You also claim that HL wants to control their employees and shove religion down their throat. Haven’t you used this forum to push secularism and socialism down people’s throats.
If I own a business I have a certain way I want to run that business. I have a right to run that business the way I want to–good or bad, efficiently or non-efficiently. HL is running their business according to their beliefs–not yours.
I think you need to read the FDA descriptions of the methods in question. Each one is described as doing what you say they don’t do.
Don, lol
BarkinDog
We can even build residences using condoms, I.e., condominiums.
FDA “Ella”
12 CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY
12.1 Mechanism of Action
When taken immediately before ovulation is to occur, ella postpones follicular rupture. The likely primary mechanism of action of ulipristal acetate for emergency contraception is therefore inhibition or delay of ovulation; however, alterations to the endometrium that may affect implantation may also contribute to efficacy.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2010/022474s000lbl.pdf
FDA PLAN B
12 CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY
12.1 Mechanism of Action
Emergency contraceptive pills are not effective if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B One-Step is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/021998lbl.pdf
So, do we believe Elaine Magliaro when she states; “, the four contraceptive methods that Hobby Lobby objected to paying for—Plan B, Ella, and two intrauterine devices—are not abortifacients?”
Or, do we believe the FDA when they say Plan B “may inhibit implantation”?
When Hobby Lobby read the FDA pharmacology statement provided by the FDA, it is clearly reasonable for them to conclude that Plan B may result in an abortion by causing the fertilized egg to not implant on the uterus. And, that’s exactly why the government did not provide the same nonsensical argument that Elaine has presented here.
Do I need to provide the same FDA information for “Ella” and the IUDs? Or will Elaine provide that information?
If the federal government would put free condoms in dispensers on every street corner and require them to be hung in every garage in America then we would cut down on the unwanted babies. They should be given out with your change when you buy gasoline and given out at church when they pass the plate by you in the seating area.
To those of you who do not like socialized medicine you can sleep easy tonight because the ACA just guarantees capitalizm for the doctors. If you want good medical care go to Canada.
DdD, when a government tells people what they will do, you have socialism. The ACA is a socialistic insurance that benefits some of the poor and not the rest of American citizens.
In the past, all businesses have had the right to offer insurance plans according to their means and their convictions. Some offered limited insurance benefits and some large corporations offered full insurance benefits.
Now we are told that we will all be paying for a federal mandated plan, whether we like it or not. So, in the case of HL, they have a right to determine if the insurance plan they are forced to carry meets with their values. Since it did not they are using their Constitutional rights to take a portion of the ACA to court.
Sorry it doesn’t meet with your approval, but that’s life.
I have a more fundamental objection to the Hobby Lobby decision, not directly addressed by this post. I just don’t see how for profit corporations and religion go together. In the myriad of suits that have been and will be filed as the result of the Hobby Lobby decision, will there be discovery allowed which challenges the sincerity of the owners’ stated religious beliefs? If that discovery produces evidence which shows that the shareholders don’t always “walk the walk” regarding their religious beliefs or other evidence that the stated religious justification for the shareholders’ litigation position is just a pretext to advance a non-religious agenda, does the corporation lose its suit? Such evidence could be obtained by examining the business operations of the corporation or the personal behavior of the shareholders. This type of discovery will be very intrusive, but I don’t see how you can preclude a party from challenging an asserted religious justification for a particular position as being pretextual. The best way to defend Hobby Lobby type suits will be to engage in discovery to determine if the shareholders faithfully adhere to all the tenets of their particular religion, both personally and through their corporation. What a disaster that will be. Bad for everyone.
I am still learning about the issues but there are a few key issues that I have picked up. This ruling is not allowed for a company like GM. This is only for closely held corporations. In addition, I have never read that cost is a factor in wanting the exclusion. I am not religious and I support abortion. I also believe in religious freedom.
@annie
It was remark about “using religion to control other people.” HL not wanting to spring for someone ‘s “abortion (sic) ” is hardly controlling them. Sooo, I presume something else was motivating you. Like the anti -clinger stuff.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
FYI Hobby Lobby pay their employees twice the minimum wage.
Squeeky, why do you assume it bothers me that people have a belief system? More power to them, but the power of their faith cannot be shoved down secular throats and inserted into a secular government. Separation of Church and State, remember that? You also are trying to say that secular people use politics as their religion, that’s simply silly rhetoric. There are plenty of secular folks who aren’t political and there are plenty of political folks who don’t hold up politicians as divine and politics as holy. Squeekers, you use too much hyperbole.
The right leaning 5 don’t need to deal with scientific facts. If it goes against Obama then it is okay. And as for Scalia, we know where he stands on the issue of life, so he should not care even if they were abortifacts, which, Squeeky and Megyn Kelly notwithstanding, is not the case with the 4 in the hobby case.
The Court’s order in Davis was not unanimous, however. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented. Justice Scalia said that even if the district court were to find Davis to be innocent, there would still be nothing unlawful about executing him.http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20090826.html
“Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect,” he explained in 2006. “One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly. That is a truism, not a revelation.” http://news.lawreader.com/2012/11/12/scalia-willing-to-tolerate-execution-of-the-innocent/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/hobby-lobby-bill-gothard-institute-basic-life-principles “For a decade or so, Hobby Lobby and its owners, the Green family, have been generous benefactors of a Christian ministry that until recently was run by Bill Gothard, a controversial religious leader who has long promoted a strict and authoritarian version of Christianity. Gothard, a prominent champion of Christian home-schooling, has decried the evils of dating, rock music, and Cabbage Patch dolls; claimed public education teaches children “how to commit suicide” and undermines spirituality; contended that mental illness is merely “varying degrees of irresponsibility”; and urged wives to “submit to the leadership” of their husbands. Critics of Gothard have associated him with Christian Reconstructionism, an ultrafundamentalist movement that yearns for a theocracy, and accused him of running a cultlike organization. In March, he was pressured to resign from his ministry, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, after being accused by more than 30 women of sexual harassment and molestation—a charge Gothard denies.”
@bettykath
No. According to what Megyn said, those 4 can also interact with already fertilized eggs. Per the FDA. In a few hours I will be able to cut and paste again.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Annie,
I retrieved your comment. WordPress is acting up this morning. I’ll be away for a couple hours…so I won’t be able to rescue comments that have been swallowed by the WordPress vortex of doom.