Eugene Volokh and Marty Lederman on Hobby Lobby

The Volokh Conspiracy: My Hobby Lobby Posts, In a Single Word Document, by Eugene Volokh:

Here are my Hobby Lobby posts in a single Word document, in case some of you might find them helpful.

Balkinization: Hobby Lobby Part One--Framing the Issues, by Marty Lederman:

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court announced that it will consider two related cases involving claims for religious exemptions to what has commonly (but inaccurately) been called the “contraception mandate” under the Affordable Care Act—Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialty Corp. v. Sebelius.  The cases will be consolidated for oral argument, which the Court will almost certainly hear between March 24 and April 2.  The first briefs in the cases will be filed on January 10.  Amicus briefs on both sides are due January 28.

Balkinization: Hobby Lobby Part Two--What's it all About?, by Marty Lederman:

Are the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases about employee health insurance plan coverage of contraception, writ large, or—as the plaintiffs in those two cases would have it—“only” about coverage of “abortifacients,” or about four discrete forms of birth control?  Something less?  Something more?

 

As I'll try to explain in this post, the cases do not, in truth, have anything to do with abortion or “abortifacients” as those terms are generally understood under federal law or in the medical and scientific communities.  Beyond that, however, it is hard to know for certain exactly which forms of birth control are specifically challenged in these two cases.  Nevertheless, what is clear is that the Supreme Court’s decision in these casescould implicate legal requirements imposed upon for-profit employers that reach well beyond any particular birth-control methods—indeed, beyond contraception itself.