As reported at Breitbart.com in an article written by Ken Klukowski, “Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with this mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.”
Klukowski writes that, “This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake. The Greens are a law-abiding family. They have no desire to defy their own government. But as the Founders launched the American Revolution because they believed the British government was violating their rights, the Greens believe that President Barack Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are commanding the Greens to sin against God, and that no government has the lawful authority to do so.”
Read more at Hobby Lobby Defies Obama Administration
- See Missouri Tenth’s prior article on Hobby Lobby and the Federal Government’s persecution of Christian business.
- As for Birth Control and Obamacare in Missouri, please see Gov. Nixon and his progressive pals seek to subvert Missouri Sovereignty and Federal Judge Blocks Missouri Liberty
The dishonesty of seeking relief from having to insure based on the possibility that one of your employees may use the insurance for contraception is breathtaking since it is so clear that the employers in question, including this little “Hobby Lobby” simply do not want their profits reduced by having to pay for health insurance for their employees…and would much rather loyal employees get sick and die while continuing to add to their profits for as long as possible.
Under the (Catholic) principle of the double effect, the benefits of health insurance outweigh thin logical possibilities that one or more employees may get abortions and fund those abortions through Hobby Lobby’s health plan. If they do so, the sin is on their head and that of the health professionals who provide the abortion and not the employer. The employer’s choice was to provide a much-needed employee benefit. The sinful use of the benefit is not his responsibility. Otherwise, we become through slippery slopes, responsible for all the evil in society since in all or most cases, a chain of cause and effect can be traced from our actions to evil actions.
It is indeed strange, and an indicator of disingenuousness, that Protestants have here allied themselves with Catholics in condemning not only birth control, abortifacients and even insurance policies that MIGHT fund birth control or abortifacients since historically, Protestants have not been so hardline against birth control. It’s as if despite the fact that their Protestant ancestors came here for freedom in part from CATHOLIC oppression such as interference with diet (meatless Friday) and reproduction, they must in turn adopt the teaching of the old faith in order to control others and get their SECULAR way (not having to pay for insurance for their employees).
Providing an insurance plan that will conditionally pay for birth control or abortion is not an evil for two reasons.
The first is the (Catholic) principle of “double effect” in which in certain circumstances justifies an evil committed to secure a greater good although interestingly, the double effect, a scholastic way of saying that the end justifies the means in certain cases, is frequently been applied to justify state terror by Catholic states, or secular states which need the support of large Catholic majorities such as Franco’s Spain or Pinochet’s Chile. The double effect reduces as far as I can determine to “the end justifies the means because we say so” and is never applied to women’s reproductive health by the Church.
More seriously the provision of the coverage DOES NOT TRIGGER THE EVIL. The company that underwrites a plan that covers birth control or abortion has not, at the moment of underwriting, provided birth control or abortions, it has merely promised to pay for this should the policyholder need and requests the medication or procedure. There is in fact no moral law against making such a promise, or if there is, the promise is morally insignificant since it’s made BY A CORPORATION which in Catholic theology is NOT a person.
The evil acts happen later…much later, in fact, when the Hobby Lobby employee finances birth control or abortions but at this time Hobby Lobby is no longer involved. It cannot stop the employee from violating her Christian principles (or deciding in the light of the moment, perhaps when faced to carrying a rapist’s child that “carry the child” isn’t a Christian principle after all, a decision which we must respect because the moral law must be embraced in freedom). At this point, the family owning Hobby Lobby is out of the picture. They can no more prevent the purchase of birth control pills or abortion than require it to go forward. The moral agents at the time of the evil use of the policy are the employee and such health providers as perform the abortion or sell birth control pills and/or abortifacients.
Interestingly, not even the insurance company is at fault if it is a legal person, since even legal persons are NOT theological persons. It simply cuts a check by automated means and the computer operator doesn’t even have to know that the money will cover an act considered illicit by some (but not all) Protestants, some (but not all) Catholics.
My reasoning may strike some as tortuous and hard. It would be easier to simply accuse the Green family of both greed and hypocrisy but I want to show that even if we take them at their word they simply have no case.
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