Hobby Lobby And Liberal Civility?

I think the main issue here should be whose rights should be paramount. Should the rights of the individual receiving the health care be more important or should the rights of the employer be held to be the main consideration?

I think most people fall victim to their own knee-jerk reaction on this issue. Conservatives are more likely to only consider the needs of the business owner. Liberals fall back on reproductive rights without any real thought. Christians invoke some mistaken sense of religious freedom. Non-Christians invoke a different mistaken sense of religious freedom.

And all of them can be uncivil on the issue. I've had liberals be uncivil towards me when I disagree with them, true, but I've had just as many conservatives act the same way. Incivility is not mutually exclusive to just one political ideology or religious standpoint.

I think we first have to question whether employers should even be providers of health insurance. It's really quite a stupid concept if you think about it. It burdens businesses, is inefficient, and opens up employees to all kinds of abuses.

A really important point conservatives made during the passage of the ACA is the idea that nobody should get between a patient and his or her doctor. Health care and the decisions related to it are highly personal. If we let the government impose itself on those decisions we run the risk of losing all ability to make decisions for ourselves and the whole concept of personal responsibility goes out the window.

Of course, this also applies to other people or institutions getting between patient and doctor. And the law recognizes this which is why getting a living will is important. My brother can make decisions for me if I'm incapacitated but I certainly wouldn't want him to tell me what medical procedures I can or can't decide on. I really wouldn't want my seventh day Adventist uncle forbidding me from getting a life-saving blood transfusion. And I think we all would agree on this.

Which is why I find it strange that conservatives who have expressed a belief in the sanctity of this patient/doctor relationship to be okay with an employer interfering in medical decisions. I understand that the owners of Hobby Lobby have a moral objection to contraception--but they certainly should not have the right to get between a woman and her doctor when she makes that choice.

As I said above the idea of employers providing health insurance is a stupid system. But that said that's all the employer is doing--providing a health insurance. They have a right to chose what plan they will offer based on cost but they have no right to get between a patient and her doctor. That is they have no right to decide what the insurance will cover apart from the issue of cost to the business. The business has the right to conduct itself in a way that benefits itself within certain parameters (ie, minimum wage, labor laws, laws against fraud). But that is the extent of its rights. When business rights are considered more important than the rights of individuals then we have violated the most basic ideas of individual liberty and individual responsibility. Certainly the owner of the store (is it David Green?) has an individual right to oppose contraception but he has no individual right to get between a woman and her doctor. And beyond that Hobby Lobby as a business is distinct from David Green as an individual.

What's at issue here is not whether David Green has a religious right to not pay for contraception (which he isn't--he's paying for health insurance) but whether he has a right to get between a patient and her doctor. I would submit that he has no such right. The rights of business do not trump the rights of individuals.

I would like to know how Hobby Lobby insures its employees. If they self insure, then I can see where the company may have a leg to stand on in the argument that they do not plan to fund abortions. However, if the company insures their employees through a marketplace health insurer, they would seem to be on shaky ground in my estimation, in asserting any separation of funds so that their insurance premiums do not cover any abortions.

I am unsure if this distinction would help the company under the rules of the ACA and the area of employee rights, but it is what came to my mind as I thought of this case.

Your question leaves out the idea of employee rights. Hobby Lobby is asking its employees to abide by standards of conduct that the owners prefer even when it comes to issues of employee privacy and right to general health care as defined by law. A corporation, which Hobby Lobby is, (even if family owned) does not have all the same rights that individuals enjoy yet. Hobby Lobby seems to think corporations deserve more rights than they currently have. I hope they lose because corporations do not need or deserve privacy rights or a right to freedom of religion.

When a family owned business incorporates and enjoys the benefits of incorporation, it ceases to be just a family owned business. It becomes a corporation. At best corporations are artificial individuals. The idea that corporations have religion and religious rights just sounds ludicrous. Do you and America really want this corporate personhood issue to expand? I don't.

There are two problems with Hobby Lobby's suit.

1) When Hobby Lobby writes a check to pay for the employer portion of health insurance that check comes from the corporate entity - Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. The corporate officers and directors are not paying for anything, so they should not be able to impose their personal moral views.

2) If Christians can deny contraception under an employer-sponsored health plan, does that mean Christian Scientists can deny hospital visits? Can Jehovah's Witnesses deny blood transfusions?

MANY AMERICAN WOMEN USE BIRTH CONTROL PILLS FOR NONCONTRACEPTIVE REASONS

The most common reason U.S. women use oral contraceptive pills is to prevent pregnancy, but 14% of pill users—1.5 million women—rely on them exclusively for noncontraceptive purposes. The study documenting this finding, “Beyond Birth Control: The Overlooked Benefits of Oral Contraceptive Pills,” by Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, also found that more than half (58%) of all pill users rely on the method, at least in part, for purposes other than pregnancy prevention—meaning that only 42% use the pill exclusively for contraceptive reasons.

The study—based on U.S government data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)—revealed that after pregnancy prevention (86%), the most common reasons women use the pill include reducing cramps or menstrual pain (31%); menstrual regulation, which for some women may help prevent migraines and other painful “side effects” of menstruation (28%); treatment of acne (14%); and treatment of endometriosis (4%). Additionally, it found that some 762,000 women who have never had sex use the pill, and they do so almost exclusively (99%) for noncontraceptive reasons.

Menstrual-related disorders and irregular periods are particularly common during adolescence. Not surprisingly, the study found that teens aged 15–19 who use the pill are more likely to do so for non-contraceptive purposes (82%) than for birth control (67%). Moreover, 33% of teen pill users report using oral contraceptive pills solely for noncontraceptive purposes.

“It is well established that oral contraceptives are essential health care because they prevent unintended pregnancies,” said study author Rachel K. Jones. “This study shows that there are other important health reasons why oral contraceptives should be readily available to the millions of women who rely on them each year.”

Other hormonal methods such as the ring, patch, implant and IUD offer the same types of noncontraceptive benefits as the pill; however, this analysis was limited to oral contraceptive pills, because the NSFG did not ask about other hormonal methods. Given this limitation, the author suggests that the number of women relying on hormonal contraception for reasons other than pregnancy prevention is almost certainly higher than the 1.5 million estimated in this study.

For more information on the noncontraceptive benefits of the pill, click here “Beyond Birth Control: The Overlooked Benefits of Oral Contraceptive Pills.”

That respondent LOSES in its first sentence.

Hobby Lobby's management IS NOT seeking to DENY ACCESS. It simply seeks relief from being FORCED TO PAY for OTHER PEOPLE to violate its standards.

This "argument" is ROUTINE among Democrats, virtually all of whom claim any disinclination to PAY FOR OTHERS exactly equals a demand to outright ban the thing in question.

my biggest problem here is I don't know one Christian that is actually opposed to birth control... of course I don't know many catholics, but are they catholic?

but oh, as soon as you ask them to help people pay for it, then all of a sudden it's against their religion?

if it's a true religious belief, I have no problem with it being an exception based on that... but I wonder if that's really the issue...

about 99 percent of the christian girls I know have been on bc at one point or another, and not that there is anything wrong with it... smart family planning... but just don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining...

Hobby Lobby is trying to avoid complying with a law it doesn't like. We can't let people pick and choose which laws they will obey or we will have anarchy.

I am under the impression that Hobby Lobby does hire only Christians who believe as they do . This may or may not be so , but the libs should investigate this or shut their mouth until they know

The extremes of both sides do that to get a reaction. If you want the real story you just have to filter out the knee jerk reactions.

We can't let employers force their religious views on their employees. What if Muslim business owners forced us to bring prayer rugs to work? Conservatives would be screaming bloody murder in that scenario.

And that scenario will happen some day if the high court allows the scourge of religion in the work place.