Lawyer. Later former secretary Janet Napolitano talks about education policy. Next a discussion on the impact of the splooem Supreme Court decision on the can traception mandate in the Health Care Law. From washington journal, this is 40 minutes. Joining us now, pro choice america, their president , welcome. Thank you for having me. We are here to talk in part about the decisions made by the Supreme Court last week. First of all with hobby lobby, what happened . What is your perspective . My perspective is i am disturbed. What we saw were five male judges essentially say that discrimination against women is not discrimination at all. What happened is that the court decided in favor of a private corporation saying that our religious beliefs trump the civic doubt we have to provide comprehensive health care for all of our employees. This was coming on the heels of there are administration and the country acknowledging if you are truly a religious institution, are you exempt from this. You request do your own ideas about what your health care looks like, but if you are a private corporation, we all have to play by certain rules in Civil Society and this is one of them. We will provide comprehensive health care. Hobby lobby was one of dozens of companies that said, actually, im not going to. Im not going to provide certain kind of contraception. More specific, right . Always abortion specifically that caused abortions . Well, they dont. Im glad you brought that up. It was an interesting piece of the case not many people knew about. Every single medical expert in the country agrees, your viewers will be familiar with. Most of them iuds, pedestrian b, do not actually incite abortion. What they do is prevent fertilization. What the justices essentially said during the oral arguments is the medical science the facts are of no consequence legally in this case. Because we are talking about someones belief system. So there is no way for us to adjudicate what they believe even though all of medical society lined up and said the facts are flawed. So they said, no, were not going to provide these kind of contraception and the court said, unfortunately, you dont have to. Why its disturbing is because what it essentially says is Womens Health care is different than other kind of health care and in this instance, for Womens Health care, my boss gets to decide what i choose and dont choose, even though its my earning. We have to remember and your viewers know this very well, our Insurance Coverage is a part of our compensation. Its not something they just willingly provide. In fact, hobby lobby enjoys a very nice tax break on the taxpayers that are paying hobby lobby to pay its employees Health Insurance. So essentially, its punished female workers and set off a domino effect. The very next day we had other corporations say, you know what, i dont want to cover component compensation at all. It starts chipping away at what every doctor in the company says. Wart of what the justice said this is solely a mandate. Our decision should not hold an Insurance Coverage mandate must necessarily fail if it conflicts with a religious beliefs. He did write that. We will see. One of the this i think so that happened immediately after the case was handed down was a number of employees wrote a letter to president obama saying, hey, just so you know, if you actually pass an executive order that says i cant discriminate in my employment against gay and lesbian people, i intend to file ary lid a religious claim. The court tried to say this is a narrow ruling. They didnt prevent anyone else coming back an saying. They said this ruling applies to contraception. They dont prevent anyone else coming back on religious ground, they set a precedent that said, you know, that building over there you think makes widgets, it has a spiritual bleechlt it may be different than your, but it trumps yours. Thats part of what i think people are finding so disturbing ability this, we do value religious liberty in this country. Our country was actually back in a minute on it. Its what makes our democracy thrive. Wouldnt certain types of businesses fall under that, not every would follow under the elite system. What the court ruled in this case it applies to all closelyHeld Corporations. Which is not a matter of size. It is a legal structure and it actually covers 52 of our economy. It just means that the majority of the shares are held by a very small number of people some your viewers will be familiar with closely Held Corporation like cargils, like coke zrits, like toys r us. These are closely Held Corporations. So the sweeping effect is pronounced based on the ruling. So in essence, what itself the worst Case Scenario . Well, the worst case is i Case Scenario, i dont think we have seen the worst Case Scenario, we know immediately women will lose access to some kind of contraception many have been using and see them as detrimental to their health. What i think we will start to see is with the establishment of this precedent, people will file religious claims on behalf of their countries. We might see people saying i dont want to hire gay people, we might see people saying, hiv medication is against my spiritual belief and the court will now, has set a precedent it will have to hear those cases because its granted that these companies can, in fact, hold spiritual meanings. Do you know in the lower courts that possibly would work in the mandate up the Supreme Court . Not yet. There are definitely cases in the lower court that go beyond the four kind of contraception that say i dont want to cover contraception at all. I think what we will start to see because of the message the court sent is more than we tell in this letter from the employer saying, hey, if you sign in, im going to use this court case to say its against my religious beliefs to hire lbgt people. Ilyse, you want to ask her questions on it, call us. Our first call is from derek from stillwater, minnesota, independent line. You are on with ilyse hoeg. Go ahead. Caller yeah, i got a question. So knowing that, obviously, are you prochoice, its in your name. So im going to assume that. But knowing that men are now the minority in this country and women make up 53 of it, technically the minority doesnt have a voice in this example obviously if you, two people have sex and somebody decides to have an abortion, why is there no choice for the man in that side of the equation and would you support that . I think we are seeing an enormous amount of equality for men. Up with of the thing noi noted is hobby lobby covers things like viagra and other Erectile Dysfunction Drugs while its refusing to cover contraception, which as we know is actually the way that we reduce abortion in this country, by providing as much access to contraception at all. As to the callers question, i this i what we do see is enormous number, couples making this decision together. I also think the law is clear on this and women do have the ul mat choice and when theyre denied contraception, theyre denied the entire range of choices that stops us from getting to the place that your caller is talking about. Aup next. Providence, rhode island, democrats line. Yeah, good morning, i am calling concerning this issue here. Ill never forget. I have a 23yearold daughter. She was born if december of 1990 and at that time a sonogram technology was there, but, you know, it wasnt that good and i remember seeing my daughter in the sonogram. Her body, you know, moving around, a little small little thing and that conclusively told me, there is a life over there. All right. Im a prolife democrat and what i dont like is going on here is the Democratic Party. I only voted republican once and it was for ronald reagan. I voted for him two times, the Democratic Party has been taking over. Its not for the working man anymore. Even though im a retired stock 30 years in the business. Its been taken over by an elite, very wealthy elite primarily located in manhattan and los angeles. Shes got a little smirk on her face right now, im looking at it. So, caller what do you want us to address . Caller thats a good question. That conclusively with the advances in sonogram technology up to the year 2000 is definitely a life and shes smiling and you are snuffing it out. Ill let our guest respond. One of the things that is really interesting that the polling data shows is that seven in ten americans across the board, whether talking about south carolina, kansas, or nationwide support the rights that were enshrined in roe versus wade. One of the things that we know is that when abortion is made illegal the number of abortions dont go up. The number of death itself and injuries to women go up. Some people just dont believe that government should be involved in our most personal decision. But that actually spans both parties. Its a really interesting dynamic that we see that every ethnicity. Every age group, every party, there is still a majority of support for women and with our partners and our doctors to make our most personal Health Care Decisions and im from texas, so im very familiar with all the different kind of democrats and republicans, but i thank your caller for his call. He is certainly entitled to his opinion. We all have opinions. I think the question is what the law should do in terms of taking the callers opinion and imposeing it on other people and the law is very clear on that. The law is clear this is a privacy whysh that women with our doctors an our families only we know our own individual circumstances and thats why it protects to us make our own personal Health Care Decisions. Next on our republican line, lowell, go ahead. Caller its terribly disturbing to watch the disposition of the youth in the united states, sex seems to be something that people who know longer have it into ed to pay. I understand both sides, but i certainly look at hobby lobby as standing up for their religious rights, where you were a muslim, we and the right in the nation would be totally for a mussily. Having any kind of desire he have and supporting that. Its i raised my children with god in their lives and it should be respected and my daughter, alexandra, at 21, i think she needs to have contraception and i would hope that it would be only after shelves married, not before. I know that is no longer the moral and ethical stances that people in the united states, but it should be and for a person who atests to do the right thing in life and their parents rayes raised them properly to have the ideas that our grandparent had about morality and ethics, we want to instill in our children. I dont want to take up any more of our time. What i want to say is if you are moral and ethical. It seems like you should be patted on the back rather than made to feel the fool. It sounds like the caller has a lovely family. I applaud him for it. People in this country have all sorts of different attitudes and different kind of partnerships. Thats what makes our country wonderful. I think what is challenging about the hobby lobby case is it does actually reject medical science that these kind of contraceptions are used for all sorts of conditions, including preventing unintended pregnancy, including for married people. Its a funny thing to note the iud is used for married, sorry, used disproportionately by married people who feel like their family size is what theyve chosen. So it sounds like the caller has a lovely family. But i think its not pursuant to the case, because if you actually want to make a case, that hobby lobby should be consistent, the question of why theyre not covering contraception that is used by married people, single people, people with medical conditions, people who want to avoid unintended presents a, but they are covering viagra, cialis and the other kind of drugs. Thats a really relevant question in this case. Thats what leads us to the fact it is a discrimination against one class of people. Thats women who work for hobby lobby. You use the phrase five mill justices in the beginning, that was a part of your response the decision. They also added a little Justice Kennedys language in his writings. He said this, he said this, its important to confirm a premise of the courts opinion is the assumption of the hhs here is a compelling interest in the health of female employees, kennedy wrote, although the court didnt explicitly halt a compelling interest. The National Review goes on to say, kennedy pointed out the government has admitted by coming up with a socalled commentation it could restrict furthering the interest tan using the contraceptive mandate. Did they take the wrong approach . Well, its a very interesting thing to lay it out even and put a finer point on it. What Justice Kennedy is arguing is sort of different than what your caller is arguing. Justice kennedy is saying it is in the best interest to provide contraception for women across this country for medical reasons, all of the above. But because the government had said for religious affiliates and nonprofit, he was arguing its less onerous on the government than the business. Whats fascinating is the very next day they issued a series of emergency rulings, including the one on Wheaton College that shows that they actually dont have to abide by the very accommodation that Justice Kennedy those who may not be familiar with the Wheaton College ruling. What is it . It says you dont have to cover this at all right now. And that was not you have to find a third party administrator, which is what the government argued. So, basically, we are getting into the legal leads here. But the people have said, oh, but that means that the accommodation will stand, it will be next session. All Justice Kennedy is saying the burden is on the government to show that they said this is the least restrictive way to accomplish their goals in this case, providing contraception. This is not the least restrictive way in Justice Kennedys opinion. Theyve already shown there is another way t. Accommodation is up before the Supreme Court. With the wheaton ruling, it sort of tipped our hands the very next day. You know what the accommodation may not stand either. We are back to square one. Frank lives in fort lauderdale, florida. He is on our independent line. Go ahead. Caller yes, hi, i want to ask you about the religious component in this whole argument, which you have been addressing from the pro choice side. You know, on Notre Dame University there was, a you know, there was some people who didnt want obama to speak there a number of years ago because of his views on abortion some of the alumni got pretty mad. Georgetown university, obama spoke at that school. They covered up the Christian Cross in the back drop. I saw obama at notre dame, i sided with him there. I basically was against them putting a white sheet over the Christian Cross. I thought if obowl is going to choose that venue, he has to put up with the institution or which includes the Catholic Church that hes at and to a certain extent, i, you know, i sympathize with the ruling. I figure its similar to this case to it. Could you comment on that . Well, im not familiar with the case of georgetown, i do know our president is a christian. So i cant say anything more than that i think the point the caller is making about religious liberty is a very important one. As i started to say earlier, it was a value our country was founded on. Its what makes our democracy tread. Religious liberty means two things, it means i dont have to do anything because of my own personal faith and the government cant force me to do that. However, i dont get to force anyone else to do anything that they dont want to do because of my personal faith i dont get to tell my people what to do. That makes religious freedom thriving and make sure we have the diversity in our democracy that we actually value and we pledge religious persecution from. I think whats happening in the hobby lobby the owners can say, this is not right for my family. This is not what i want to do. If you enjoy the tax breaks of being in a democracy, you are expected to play by a certain set of rules an part of those rules is, i dont get to impose my religious beliefs on my employees. I am a private corporation. They have just broken those rules, which really does endanger religious liberty. I think thats why we saw a lot of people of faith speaking out. There were a lot of preachers and reverends who said this is not a victory. This is actually a scary defeat for religious liberty and that we value in this country. A viewer of twitter says this is a problem, forcing companies to provide specific coverages. Shouldnt it be the customers choice . In this case, it would be the customers choice. The government has a compelling interest in making shoo you are the Health Insurance plans that again tax payers are subsidizing, they get tax breaks, are comprehensive enough that it actually affects everyone equally. Every employee should have equal access. They can choose to use it or not they have to have an equal lefr level of coverage in their Health Insurance plans. In this case, thats exactly what this is doing is not making it unequal, what Affordable Care act did and did so well was actually say we all do better, economically from a health perspective, from a civic perspective, within we you the most amount of preventative medicines, preventative treatments possible. Thats where the contraception got covered. It is a preventative treatment. If you already have the family size you feel like you can afford, that you want, it prevents unintended pregnancies and this coverage or this case actually