Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that private, for-profit companies, cannot be forced to provide insurance coverage for certain types of contraception. This decision stems from a lawsuit filed by Hobby Lobby (a craft store chain), who objected to providing certain types of contraception that was mandated to be covered under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling said that these private companies could not be required to provide coverage for some types of IUDs and emergency contraception because it forced the owners of Hobby Lobby to compromise their religious beliefs.
It is important to note that the Supreme Court did not rule this way because of the First Amendment; instead they said it was the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that forced them to rule this way. RFRA was signed into law in the 1990s, and talks about how much a person's religious beliefs can be imposed upon by other laws.
In Minnesota there are eight companies that have filed similar cases: Annex Medical, Doboszenski & Sons, Feltl and Company, American Mfg Company, Hasting Automotive, The QC Group, SMA, and Stinson Electric. These companies range from parts manufacturers to small businesses that you might patronize.
Hastings Automotive objected to the same two types contraceptive methods that Hobby Lobby did, but the other seven are even worse than Hobby Lobby because they want to go farther than just those two types of birth control. They don't want to cover any type of contraception, sterilization (like hysterectomies and vasectomies), or even education about these options! These companies want to prevent YOUR doctor from telling YOU about all of your medical options.
Can you imagine if you needed a hysterectomy, because of ovarian cancer, but your doctor wasn't allowed to even educate you about that option because your Boss didn't allow them to? Hopefully it won't come to that, but this case opened the door to that possibility.
These cases are all sitting at the Court of Appeals and we don't know what will happen with them. The court will have to look at every type of birth control these companies don't want to cover and decide if it places too much of a burden on the owner's religious belief. Going forward, these cases will now be examined using the Burwell v Hobby Lobby ruling as a guide post. The US Supreme Court provided example remedies including having the government cover these options or having health insurance companies eat the costs, so the lower courts could use one of these options instead of completely siding with the private companies.
Regardless of what happens the ACLU-MN will keep fighting to protect your full access to reproductive health care. We filed a brief in the lead case objecting to contraception coverage out of Minnesota and will continue to advocate legally as the case proceeds.