Kevin DeYoung, pastor and co-author of What Is the Mission of the Church?, among other titles, writes in Christianity Today on the topic, “Why You Should Care About the Hobby Lobby Case—And Be Alarmed.” The opening:
The facts are well known: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) requires employers to provide insurance for their employees. As part of the mandated health coverage, businesses must include contraceptives and abortifacient drugs in their insurance plans. Hobby Lobby, owned by the Green family (strong Christians and generous philanthropists), is refusing to comply with the HHS mandate, believing that the government is requiring what is unethical and infringing upon their religious liberty. Perhaps it is tragically fitting that Justice Sotomayor denied Hobby Lobby judicial relief on December 26—St. Stephen’s Day, the day the church remembers its first martyr.
Millions of Americans are already outraged. And rightly so. Our government not only allows for abortion, and celebrates abortion rights, and wants women to have unfettered access to abortion on demand, it now requires other Americans to pay for abortion-inducing drugs or face crippling fines. It is not an endorsement of any political party to conclude that this policy is morally degenerate. More Americans should be alarmed than are already.
DeYoung goes on to ask several important rhetorical questions about the Department of Justice’s brief filed in October. The DoJ’s logic reminds me of what Nancy Pearcey eloquently discusses in Saving Leonardo: The strict separation of fact from values. The Justice Department would have us take as a given that abortifacient drugs improve the health of women, and that any personal convictions about the life of the fetus amount to nothing more than mere personal preferences. That’s why the DoJ’s brief can argue that “any burden caused by the regulations is simply too attenuated to qualify as a substantial burden.”