By MARK SHERMAN
AP STL
March 24, 2014
WASHINGTON • The administration of President Barack Obama and its opponents are renewing the Supreme Court battle over the Affordable Care Act in a case that pits the religious rights of employers against the rights of women to the birth control of their choice.
Two years after the entire law survived the justices’ review by a single vote, the court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a religion-based challenge from family-owned companies that object to covering certain contraceptives in their health plans as part of the law’s preventive care requirement.
Health plans must offer a range of services at no extra charge, including all forms of birth control for women that have been approved by federal regulators.
Some of the nearly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives object to paying for all forms of birth control. But the companies involved in the high court case are willing to cover most methods of contraception, so long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized.
The largest among them, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., and the Green family that owns it, say their “religious beliefs prohibit them from providing health coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices that end human life after conception.”