The reason this case is now dangerous is because each state (until another supreme court justice is put into place to replace Scalia) will make it's own rules regarding this issue. So, you could have 50 different rulings. Since birth control and abortion are two of the most contentious issues ( and likely always will be) it could cause state secessions in the future like we had during the civil war because of this when a new Supreme court justice is chosen.
begin quote from:
Supreme Court Sends Birth-Control Case Brought by Religious Employers Back to Lower Courts
| Wall Street Journal | - |
WASHINGTON—The
Supreme Court on Monday dodged ruling on litigation brought by
religious employers that objected to an Obama administration policy
requiring contraception coverage in workers' insurance plans.
Supreme Court Sends Birth-Control Case Brought by Religious Employers Back to Lower Courts
Outcome suggests justices would have split 4-4 on the merits of the case
ENLARGE
The Supreme Court decided Monday to send the health-care law case back to lower courts.
Photo:
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
The outcome all but assures the issue that stems from the 2010 health-care law will remain unresolved for the remainder of the Obama administration, and it almost certainly resulted from the vacancy left by the February death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
In a terse, unsigned opinion, the court sent the issue back to the lower courts. The justices asked those courts to review whether recent movement in the parties’ positions could resolve the question.
After hearing arguments in the case in March, the justices themselves—who appeared potentially deadlocked at the argument—had nudged religious organizations and the government to file briefs on a potential solution to resolve the case. In the extraordinary order, the justices asked them to address whether contraceptives could be provided through the employers’ “insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.”
Related
- Supreme Court Could Split in Contraceptive Case (March 23)
- Birth Control Coverage Rules Announced by Obama Administration (July 10, 2015)
- Supreme Court to Consider Compromise to Health-Law’s Contraception Rules (March 17)
- Supreme Court Asks Parties for Paths to Settling Religious Contraception Case (March 29)
- Religious Groups, Administration Respond to High Court Request for Contraception Compromise (April 12)
- Supreme Court Makes Religious Exception to Health-Care Law (June 20, 2014)
The court’s four conservative justices have been sympathetic to religious claims seeking exemption from the coverage mandate. The court’s four liberals have been skeptical that such demands can be accommodated without interfering with women’s access to contraceptives.
The opinion, summarized by Chief Justice John Roberts from the bench, stressed that the court “expresses no view on the merits of the cases”—and that, in the interim, “nothing…is to affect the ability of the government to ensure that women covered by petitioners’ health plans obtain, without cost, the full range of FDA approved contraceptives.”
Christian colleges and other religious nonprofits had challenged an Obama administration workaround of the health-care law they said didn’t go far enough to accommodate beliefs requiring them to avoid any countenance of contraception. Under the challenged workaround, religious objectors inform the government of their opposition to contraception, and the government asks a third party to provide the coverage and reimburses them for the cost.
The government says that system protects the religious employer’s freedom of conscience while ensuring women receive the health benefit. The challengers say the workaround is inadequate, because it still uses their health plan as the vehicle to do something they believe immoral.
Monday’s order directs lower courts to examine the answers provided by the parties to see if the dispute can be resolved.
April briefs filed by the parties didn’t put them any closer to a compromise to shield the religious employers and ensure workers could still access contraception in their health benefits.
Some plaintiffs cast the ruling as a victory. Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing challengers, including an order of nuns who run a chain of nursing homes, described the decision as “an important win for the Little Sisters.”
The question affects as many as a million Catholic nonprofit employees, as well as the institutions for which they work. It also affects other Christian-linked employers, including some for-profit employers affected by the court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling that said certain business owners’ religious beliefs should be considered when Congress wrote laws.
The Catholic-affiliated plaintiffs object to most kinds of prescription birth control. The other Christian challengers are opposed specifically to forms of emergency contraception and intrauterine devices, which they consider tantamount to abortion.
Backers of the contraception requirement, who said the administration had already extended considerable effort to accommodate religious employers, said they had hoped to see the issue decided more conclusively.
“We are disappointed that the court did not resolve once and for all whether the religious beliefs of religiously affiliated nonprofit employers can block women’s seamless access to birth control,” said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president at the National Women’s Law Center.