Is There a “Right” to Birth Control?

by Joe Hargrave
for Crisis Magazine

 The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday from opposing legal counsel on the HHS contraception mandate cases. The media consensus appears to be that the justices were hard on the mandate and appear likely to issue a narrow ruling exempting “closely-held” corporations, which both of the plaintiffs are, while leaving open the question of whether or not publicly-traded corporations have First Amendment rights. The distinction is relevant since closely-held corporations are directly operated by their owners and are fairly limited in the number of shareholders they typically have, while public corporations have hundreds or thousands of shareholders. The smaller the group of ultimate decision-makers, the stronger the case that a corporation can in fact exercise religion.

Of course conservative Catholics and Protestants, along with other members of our society that value natural law morality and individual liberty, are hoping that the court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. A victory on First Amendment grounds would certainly allay widespread concerns that religious liberty in the United States is at death’s door. Elane Photography’s case, which may also be heard by the Supreme Court this year, would certainly benefit from a Supreme Court ruling establishing the religious rights of businesses. There would be cause for relaxed breathing, if not jubilation, should a tide of court rulings firmly put the brakes on the “progressive” juggernaut smashing its way through traditional America via the lower courts—especially after the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 (though in fairness, the ruling was not devastating for social conservatism).

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 Joe Hargrave is an adjunct professor of political science at Rio Salado Community College in Tempe, Arizona.