Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has provided coverage on this issue since Johnson Welded Products first filed a lawsuit on the matter.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ruled that a small company in Urbana does not have to include contraceptive coverage as part of the health insurance plans it offers its workers.
In a two-page order issued last week, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle concluded that the federal government cannot force Johnson Welded Products to comply with contraceptive regulations that are part of the 2010 health law, known as ObamaCare.
Huvelle’s order was expected because of last July’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that some for-profit companies owned by a small number of people can refuse to provide contraceptive coverage if the owners claim it violates their religious beliefs.
While the court’s decision — Burwell v. Hobby Lobby — has little impact on most corporations with a large group of stockholders, it does assert that the contraceptive mandate violates a 1993 federal law asserting that governments cannot “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.”
The ruling last July appeared to open the door to closely-held companies objecting on religious grounds to provide any of the 20 contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Johnson Welded Products is a family-owned company which objects to providing contraceptives and abortion services as part of its insurance package because of the religious beliefs of its owner, Lilli Johnson.
The firm, which manufactures brake reservoirs for the trucking industry, filed a lawsuit against the contraceptive mandate in April of last year.
Robert Muise, an attorney for the American Freedom Law Center, which represented Johnson Welded in the case, told the Springfield News-Sun in July that the Urbana company should be treated just like Hobby Lobby.
“Johnson Welded Products is in the same position as Hobby Lobby,” said Muise.
“She wants to run her company pursuant to her Catholic beliefs,” Muise said of the company’s owner. “This mandate prohibits her from doing so.”
Lauren Hitt, press secretary for Ed FitzGerald, the Ohio Democratic candidate for governor, disagreed with the decision.
“Not only does this ruling inappropriately involve a woman’s boss in extremely personal health care decisions, but it also hits at the pocketbooks of families who are already struggling to get by,” said Hitt. “As governor, Ed will stand up against extreme restrictions on women’s health care.
“Ohioans deserve to know where the governor stands on this case, Hobby Lobby and others like it.”
A spokesman for Ohio Gov. John Kasich said, “The governor is and always been pro-life and we haven’t seen the decision.”
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