Supreme Court invites bosses into the bedroom

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court decided today that the religious beliefs of some bosses can override the health care needs of the women who work for them by denying them contraceptive coverage.  This is a deeply disappointing set-back for women’s health and economic security. 

You stood with the National Women’s Health Network throughout the debate over coverage for women’s preventive health in the health care law.  Together, we told the Congress, the administration and the courts that bosses don’t belong in our bedrooms and contraception is a basic part of women’s health care.

While today’s decision does not strike down the Affordable Care Act requirement that health plans must cover contraception without co-pays, the nation’s highest court has made this more difficult.  The Supreme Court granted certain for-profit employers the right to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with us, writing in her dissent to today’s majority opinion that the exemption for these employers from the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage “would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure.” 

This could undermine valuable gains for women’s health and economic well-being that we’ve started to see throughout the country.  Last year, the share of women with no out-of-pocket costs for the types of contraception covered by the law increased to 56 percent from 14 percent one year earlier, saving women an estimated $483 million in out-of-pocket spending last year. 

Corporate CEOs can afford extra expenses for their families’ health care.  Unfortunately, many of the women who work for them, like cashiers at Hobby Lobby crafts stores, can’t stretch their limited family budgets to afford out-of-pocket expenses for birth control.

Giving businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood the religious protections that the law provides for individuals could have far-reaching consequences for other health coverage requirements and even other regulations and laws, Justice Ginsburg noted.  “The Court’s determination that [religious protection] extends to for-profit corporations is bound to have untoward effects,” she wrote.

You know this is wrong.  You know that health care decisions should be made by a woman and her health care provider, not by her boss.  And you know that contraception should be treated like other proven preventive care and covered by insurance without co-payments that create barriers to needed services.

Stand up today with the strong majorities who agree that insurance should cover contraception.  Make a donation today to help the National Women’s Health Network continue to fight for this basic part of women’s health care and this simple support for the economic security of low- and middle-income families.

We can’t give up now – we must hold the people who would deny women the health care we need accountable for their extreme agenda.

Sincerely,

Cindy Pearson

Executive Director