Trouble with Babies

The idea that a baby is a burden is so ironic during this Christmas season. As good Christians we are ever-prayerful about the HHS Mandate. Last week, Justice Sonya Sotomayor ruled that Hobby Lobby didn't have enough grounds to make an appeal. Currently there are 42 separate lawsuits challenging the Obama Administration's HHS Mandate. Hobby Lobby is the largest business to file such a lawsuit. It is also the only non-Catholic business to do so. Welcome to the ranks of Ave Maria University, Belmont Abbey College, and EWTN business.


(According to National Catholic Register) Hobby Lobby sought relief from enforcement of the mandate because as of Jan. 1, the company will face potential fines of $1.3 million per day if it declines to provide coverage of the so-called "morning after” and “week after” abortifacient drugs in its health insurance plan. Hobby Lobby appealed to the Supreme Court after the Tenth Circuit Court denied its request for relief from enforcement of the abortifacient mandate Dec. 20. The circuit court rejected the motion on the grounds that the religious burden to the Green family was “indirect and attenuated.”

While religious nonprofits are not required to comply with the mandate until Aug. 1, 2013, while the Obama administration works out the details of changes it has promised to make to the mandate to address their religious objections, other religious employers were required to begin providing co-pay-free contraceptives and related services by August 2012, or whenever they subsequently updated their health plans. A press release said, “the Green family’s religious convictions prohibit them from providing or paying for the abortion-inducing drugs, which would violate their most deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception.” This lawsuit acts to preserve the business's right to operate free from government coercion.