Say what you want about Hobby Lobby's fledgling contraception lawsuit against the government, at least the company's co-founder, David Green, is putting his money where his misguided mouth is...kind of.
After Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied the company's request for an injunction while their silly lawsuit is pending, the company announced they would rather pay $1.3-million in daily fines than provide employees with access to the morning-after pill as part of its health-care plan.
However, it looks like they've figured out a temporary loophole to prevent paying the hefty penalty. Via NewsOK:
Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. will shift the beginning of its employee health plan to temporarily stave off potentially millions of dollars in fines while its legal challenge to a federal mandate on emergency contraceptives proceeds.
The shift will allow Hobby Lobby to dodge penalties for several months that are part of the Affordable Care Act, the company said Thursday. The health care law requires the company to cover the cost of the emergency contraceptives for its employees or face up to $1.3 million in fines each day it fails to comply with the law, beginning at the inception of their insurance plan year.
A representative for Hobby Lobby declined to elaborate on how long the company will have before its new plan year will start — when the federal mandate on emergency contraceptives coverage would kick in.
“Hobby Lobby does not provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in its health care plan,” corporate general counsel Peter Dobelbower said in a statement.
“Hobby Lobby will continue to vigorously defend its religious liberty and oppose the mandate and any penalties,” he said.
Company founder and CEO David Green and his family consider some types of emergency contraceptives, including the morning-after and week-after pill, a type of abortion.
Covering the contraceptives through the company's employee health plan would conflict with the Green family's constitutionally protected religious beliefs, attorneys for the company have argued.
Yeah, that's cute and courageous and everything, but there's only one problem. Those abortion inducing drugs they're referring to really don't exist. From the Princeton website:
No, using emergency contraceptive pills (also called "morning after pills" or "day after pills") prevents pregnancy after sex. It does not cause an abortion. (In fact, because emergency contraception helps women avoid getting pregnant when they are not ready or able to have children, it can reduce the need for abortion.)
Emergency contraceptive pills work before pregnancy begins. According to leading medical authorities – such as the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants in the lining of a woman's uterus. Implantation begins five to seven days after sperm fertilizes the egg, and the process is completed several days later. Emergency contraception will not work if a woman is already pregnant.
The way emergency contraceptive pills work depends on where you are in your monthly cycle when you take them. EC works primarily, or perhaps exclusively, by delaying or inhibiting ovulation (release of your egg). It is possible that EC may affect the movement of egg or sperm (making them less likely to meet), interfere with the fertilization process, or prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. The copper in Copper-T IUDs can prevent sperm from fertilizing an egg and may also prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.
Uhm, can someone please send this post to the Green family? They're probably so busy buying old bibles and cheap crap from China that they never had time to research the science behind the evil "morning after pill." Maybe reading all this will let them know how stupid their lawsuit is.
On that note, if Hobby Lobby is such a Christian, anti-abortion and holier-than-thou corporation, why is so much of their shitty, over-priced inventory manufactured in China? If the Green family really believed in the sanctity of life and religious freedom, they probably wouldn't choose to do business with a country that denies basic human rights and carries out forced abortions. Then again, they need to make enough money to pay their $1.3 million fine, so I guess importing from China is okay. Anything for the sake of a cheap buck or wall ornament or glittery Styrofoam ball, right?
