Hobby Lobby: Whatever You Do to the Least…

Though the Supreme Court in Burwell, et al v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al., (argued on the Feast of the Annunciation and released on June 30, 2014), held in favor of Hobby Lobby in a 5-4 decision, Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion presents ample reason for concern:

…it should be said that the Court’s opinion does not have the breadth and sweep ascribed to it by the respectful and powerful dissent.ⁱ

* * *

It is important to confirm that a premise of the Court’s opinion is its assumption that the HHS regulation here at issue furthers a legitimate and compelling interest in the health of female employees.ⁱⁱ

Justice Kennedy then refers to the accommodation (currently being challenged through more than two hundred lawsuitsⁱⁱⁱ) as follows:

As the Court’s opinion explains, the record in these cases shows that there is an existing, recognized, workable, and already-implemented framework to provide coverage.^iv

Does this signal Justice Kennedy’s view of the accommodation? Later, Justice Kennedy writes:

The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it. That accommodation equally furthers the Government’s interest but does not impinge on the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs. See ante, at 44.

Paragraph 44 in the majority opinion reads as follows:

We do not decide today whether an approach of this type complies with RFRA for purposes of all religious claims. At a minimum, however, it does not impinge on the plaintiffs’ religious belief that providing insurance coverage for the contraceptives at issue here violates their religion, and it serves HHS’s stated interests equally well. ^v

Catholic teaching holds that contraception is “intrinsically evil”.^vi Will Justice Kennedy find the accommodation to be satisfactory in the cases involving Catholic plaintiffs? How will the government utilize the Catholic Health Association’s support for the accommodation? What about statistics showing that a percentage of Catholics do not abide by the Church’s teaching? ^vii

And what about the federal government’s failure to recognize that life begins at conception? In Roe, more than 40 years ago, the Court stated:

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.

. . . the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. ^viii

Roe acknowledges that if 14^th Amendment equal protection for preborn human beings exists, the case for abortion collapses:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment. [Mrs. Weddington] conceded as much on reargument.

We have lost more than 55 million preborn human beings since 1973. The number rises every day. Will we now be required to provide insurance coverage for abortion inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization?

A timely book by Dr. Charles E. Rice, Contraception & Persecution, opens as follows:

Speaking . . . to . . . priests . . . I was trying to express in overly dramatic fashion what the complete secularization of our society could bring . . . . I am (correctly) quoted as saying that I expected to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. What is omitted from the reports is a final phrase I added about the bishop who follows a possibly martyred bishop: “His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.” –Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago ^ix

Dr. Rice continues:

The Mandate is a preliminary event in this accelerating persecution of the Church and of believing Catholics.^x

Preborn human beings are the least, most defenseless, most dependent, most vulnerable among us. They are, as Mother Teresa once said, the “poorest of the poor”.^xi They face the ultimate persecution. A nation that fails to protect the innocent can lose its very soul. We must speak and live the truth with faith, hope, and love; and pray for God’s mercy; and pray that as a nation we regain consciousness so that we may live up to our founding principles.

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Notes

[i] Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion, at 1 (2014).

[ii] Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion, at 2 (2014).

[iii] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-dolan-reaffirms-bishops-opposition-to-hhs-mandate/

[iv] Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion, at 3 (2014)

[v] Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Justice Alito’s majority opinion, at 44 (2014)

[vi] http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm (see para 2370)

[vii] http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=52441

[viii] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973)

[ix] Contraception & Persecution, Charles Rice, at 1 (2014)

[x] Ibid., at 3.

[xi] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-06-22/news/8502090927_1_unborn-child-presidential-candidate-geraldine-ferraro-god; http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/social_justice/sj0004.html

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