What freedom of religion?
Does a for-profit corporation have the freedom of religion to defy the government in order to deny its employees the health care coverage that the law requires?
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving the owners of a company with hundreds of stores and thousands of employees. It claims that the requirement to cover birth control established under Obamacare goes against its religious principles.
This debate broadens the current discussion on the rights of corporations as individuals with freedom of political expression. Now they seek to attribute to those corporations a conscience in order for them to exercise religious freedom.
Churches and their affiliated nonprofit organizations already receive special treatment under the law. The intention in this case is for those exceptions to include a for-profit business, whose main function is making money instead of disseminating faith.
Some judges who have supported the lawsuit against Obamacare have not granted the corporation the right to impose a religious condition, but they have granted it to its shareholders.
This is another attempt to create ambivalent laws that grant rights to companies and shareholders as if they were individuals. However, conveniently, they are not held responsible, for example in cases of fraud. It should not be that way.
On the other hand, the idea that every business owner can impose its religious principles on the health care its employees receive is unconceivable. In this case, the company opposes family planning that includes birth control pills, “day after” pills and abortion. There are other religions that also oppose other medical procedures, and they would also have the right to impose their beliefs on their employees’ health care coverage, with the resulting chaos.
Last, an individual objection based on conscience is respectable, but it does not mean that society must customize its laws to take it into account. In general, conscientious objectors in times of war have not fared well, and they have ended up imprisoned or exiled. At the same time, it is impossible for a taxpayer to direct his taxes so that they do not contribute to a war budget because of his religious opposition to it.
Therefore, it is clear that the lawsuit against Obamacare with the argument of freedom of conscience is part of a strategy to undermine the health care law shielded behind religion. The high court did the right thing in taking the case. The justices’ ruling must follow common sense and reaffirm compliance with the law–no more, no less. Otherwise, with the argument of religious freedom, confusion would reign in a civil society like the one in America, with its wide diversity of beliefs and religions.
