As discussed in an earlier blog post, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) created a controversy about whether for-profit corporations have religious freedom. The issue concerns the requirement under ACA that health insurance sufficient to avoid penalties must include coverage for certain forms of birth control. Businesses closely held by families with strong religious convictions are objecting to this requirement as an infringement of religious freedom. In June Hobby Lobby and Mardel, Christian corporations owned by the same family, received a court order preventing the federal government from enforcing the contraception requirement and any related penalties. Also in …

A provision under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has raised the question of whether for-profit corporations have religious freedom. The ACA through guidelines from the Health Resources and Services Administration requires that non-grandfathered group health plans and individual health insurance cover, without cost to the individual, all FDA-approved contraceptive methods. The FDA-approved methods include contraception known as the “morning-after pill” and the “week-after pill”, which the FDA has acknowledged can terminate pregnancy after conception. While exemptions for contraception coverage have been made for religious non-profit corporations, no exemptions are available to for-profit corporations. In Oklahoma (10th Circuit …