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Democratic lawmakers respond to Hobby Lobby court decision with bill
TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 12, 2014
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, bills have been filed in the Ohio House and Senate regarding health insurer contraceptive coverage.
Senate Bill 355, sponsored by Sens. Charleta Tavares, D-Bexley, and Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, and House Bill 604, sponsored by Rep. Kathleen Clyde, D-Kent, would require health insurers to provide coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The measure also would prohibit employment discrimination under the Ohio Civil Rights Law on the basis of reproductive health decisions made by an individual or an individual’s dependent or on the basis of the employer’s personal beliefs about drugs, devices and services related to reproductive health.
“Physicians are best able to decide appropriate health care and prescriptions needed by their patients,” Tavares said. “Employers should not be able to selectively decide which care or prescriptions can be given to whom.”
In the recent Supreme Court case, the high court ruled that some corporations cannot be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception methods that would violate the religious beliefs of company owners.
A joint statement issued by the lawmakers said the proposed legislation, also known as the Not My Boss’s Business Act, is designed to protect women from discrimination and their boss’s interference in personal health care decisions.
“Women work hard to earn their workplace insurance plans, and to have CEOs dictate what forms of birth control are acceptable is a slap in the face to American women,” Turner said.
The statement noted that polling from Hart Research has indicated that 84 percent of women agree that birth control “should be a woman’s personal decision.”
Clyde said it’s unfair to target medicine taken only by women for exclusion from basic health coverage.
“Women can’t afford these recent attacks on this very basic part of their preventive health care, not when the costs of some birth control methods are as much as a minimum wage worker’s monthly take-home pay,” she said.
Cincinnati resident Rashida Manuel has offered her support to the proposed legislation.
“I’ve had two surgeries in the last few years because of my polycystic ovarian syndrome, and birth control pills are the preventative care that I need to ensure my body functions at its best,” she said.
“I’m more than willing to share my story, but I shouldn’t have to. My medical conditions are not my boss’s business — they’re mine and my doctor’s.”
Rev. Kate Shaner of the First Community Church in Columbus has also endorsed SB 355 and HB 604.
“When we force women into deeper poverty or force them into a situation in which they must rely on an employer’s religious beliefs in order to make decisions about their own health care, we are not being kind,” she said.
“The thought that my daughters and your daughters would have their reproductive decisions made by an employer instead of themselves in consultation with their families, their clergy and their God seems archaic and inhumane at best.”
Both bills are awaiting committee assignments.
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