{"id":4158,"date":"2016-03-23T08:38:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T14:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=4158"},"modified":"2016-03-23T09:24:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T15:24:57","slug":"3-key-issues-about-the-little-sisters-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/03\/3-key-issues-about-the-little-sisters-case.html","title":{"rendered":"3 key issues about the Little Sisters case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

First of all, apologies for jumping in without context, but here are four thoughts for your Wednesday morning. \u00a0For more detail, and links to the briefs and other resources, see the National Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0It\u2019s about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, not the First Amendment. \u00a0This law was passed in 1993 after a series of court cases which had ruled that the First Amendment did not protect religious observance\/practice in the case of government actions which were neutral, in principle, even if they had the effect of hindering religious practice. \u00a0The most notable of these was the case Employment Division v. Smith<\/em>, in which two Native Americans were fired from their jobs due to the use of peyote (and consequently failing drug testing), and were denied unemployment compensation benefits.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s wikipedia\u2019s summary<\/a>:<\/p>\n

the Act states that the \u201cGovernment shall not substantially burden a person\u2019s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law provided an exception if two conditions are both met. First, the burden must be necessary for the \u201cfurtherance of a compelling government interest.\u201d Under strict scrutiny, a government interest is compelling when it is more than routine and does more than simply improve government efficiency. A compelling interest relates directly with core constitutional issues. The second condition is that the rule must be the least restrictive way in which to further the government interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This means there are two questions under dispute: \u00a0does the contraceptive mandate \u201csubstantially burden a person\u2019s exercise of religion\u201d? \u00a0And it the \u201cleast restrictive way in which to further the government interest\u201d?<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0It\u2019s not about \u201csigning a piece of paper.\u201d \u00a0If this were simply a piece of paper that documents the objection, and exempts them from fines for failing to comply with the mandate, it would be trivial. \u00a0But the form is one that provides the relevant plan information whereby the government is able to inform the insurer\/third-party administrator that they are required to cover contraceptives. \u00a0And in doing so, it links the Little Sisters to the provision of contraception: \u00a0their employees and their dependents will have the same user experience as any other individual with non-grandfathered non-exempt employer-provided healthcare.<\/p>\n

Of course, a key legal issue is who gets to decide what counts as a \u201csubstantial burden\u201d \u2014 the administration, or the person who feels burdened.<\/p>\n

3. There is an alternative, which the Sisters themselves suggest (or at any rate, a Sister suggested, in the New York Times): \u00a0the government could simply provide contraceptive benefits separately, for all women whose healthcare plan (not the same as a \u201chealth insurance plan\u201d) doesn\u2019t cover this. \u00a0In fact, this alternative would be a more effective<\/strong> way of providing contraceptives and achieving the government goal of reducing unplanned pregnancies, since it would encompass all women, including the uninsured, and those insured by grandfathered\/exempt plans.<\/p>\n

Is this a \u201cless restrictive\u201d alternative? \u00a0The terminology doesn\u2019t entirely work, here, because the law envisions restrictions impacting religion, not government mandates. \u00a0And in a way, this flips things around: \u00a0the government might argue, in turn, that providing contraception directly is too much of a burden on government. \u00a0(\u201cMight argue\u201d = it\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve read the briefs, and I only have time to type up a few comments now, but I don\u2019t think they directly address this.) \u00a0But, of course, the government has been involved in providing contraception for decades now, just not comprehensively.<\/p>\n

But, incidentally, people are fond of bringing in the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses objections to blood transfusions, and \u201cwhat if a JW company owner objected to including blood transfusions in the health insurance plan?\u201d, but here\u2019s where it doesn\u2019t work: \u00a0contraceptives are a routine purchase which can be separated out into an alternative provisioning system to a much greater degree than a component of a broader medical treatment for an illness or injury.<\/p>\n

And more extreme analogies of \u201cwhat if someone claimed their religion required them to scalp their neighbors?\u201d fail, too, because the balance between the burdenness of the restriction and the \u201ccompelling government interest\u201d comes out in favor of the \u201ccompelling government interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

But fundamentally, there are three potential payors for contraception: \u00a0the users themselves, employers, or the government. \u00a0(Note that I\u2019m not listing \u201chealth insurance companies.\u201d \u00a0Someone purchases the heath insurance \u2014 which, as far as contraception goes, is more of a prepaid healthcare plan.) \u00a0If the government\u2019s objective is to get as many women as possible to use IUDs (I linked to this yesterday), is it reasonable for them to make employers the middlemen, or not?<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0actually, there\u2019s a fourth potential payor: \u00a0for a purchaser of unsubsidized health care benefits, in which pricing is based on age, not sex, a woman\u2019s IUD cost is shared by those in her age band who use less expensive forms of contraception, or none at all. \u00a0And, really, that gets into what was going to be item #4, but it\u2019s too complex to get into this morning: \u00a0does contraception \u201cpay for itself\u201d? \u00a0Which depends on a number of factors, including the extent to which women would have purchased it themselves otherwise, and the extent to which no out-of-pocket cost contraception reduces lifetime number of pregnancies for the insurance-purchasing<\/em> demographic (as opposed to poor women who are already getting employer-funded contraception).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, apologies for jumping in without context, but here are four thoughts for your Wednesday morning. \u00a0For more detail, and links to the briefs and other resources, see the National Review. 1. \u00a0It\u2019s about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, not the First Amendment. \u00a0This law was passed in 1993 after a series of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[269,355,255],"class_list":["post-4158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-contraception","tag-little-sisters","tag-little-sisters-of-the-poor"],"yoast_head":"\n3 key issues about the Little Sisters case<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"First of all, apologies for jumping in without context, but here are four thoughts for your Wednesday morning. \u00a0For more detail, 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