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| Women fight for their reproductive rights as they wait for a Supreme Court decision. |
The Supreme Court, still having only eight members, sent a case back to the courts of appeal, which is pretty rare for them to do. The case in question concerns whether or not religiously affiliated nonprofits are required to provide contraceptive coverage as part of their medical packages for employees.
The justices did imply support for a potential compromise that would let employees get that coverage while not requiring the nonprofits to pay for it.
That agreement suggests that nonprofits could arrange for coverage plans that did not cover contraceptives, and the providers of the program would have to handle contraceptive coverage on their own.
This would shift the burden from the nonprofits to the insurance companies, but that isn’t enough for some of the nonprofits in question. Those groups feel that, despite not paying for it, they would still be complicit in giving women access to birth control and abortion, neither of which are things that they can be denied.
Meanwhile, the nonprofits that would benefit from this compromise also cannot be fined for failing to comply with the original coverage rules. It's a possibility that threatened the stability of some of the nonprofits.
This seems to be a perfect option for the nonprofits in question. They would not be punished for breaking the law, and they wouldn’t have to pay for the parts of insurance plans that they find questionable.
It would allow them to bow out gracefully from a debate that they’re apparently losing, as the vast majority of Americans seem to have no problem with contraception or abortion being covered by insurance.
Instead, though, a small group of conservative nonprofits is pursuing frivolous cases because they want special treatment. They already pay women who could be using contraceptives or abortion services, all they’d be doing by letting them have that coverage is not standing in the way of making that affordable.
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