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Court. the biggest one or at least the highest profile one is arguably the hobby lobby case, a case that will decide whether companies can opt out of providing birth control in the health plans they offer employees. doing that is a mandate of the affordable care act. but hobby lobby has joined with catholic charities and others to argue they should be exempted as a corporation on religious grounds. here to talk about that and some of the other big cases that we expect to get decisions on in the coming days, i'm joined from richmond by dahlia lith wick, legal correspondent for slate. we also ha...

Religious freedom rights under the religious freedom restoration act? they say this is not a burden, if the government doesn't require you do provide health insurance, it's not a burden. or they could open up the door for companies saying i don't want to comply with all kinds of laws because they violate the boss's religious freedom. we could see women who work for those companies in particular because women's health care is so controversial, having a different set of earned benefits than people elsewhere. >> dahlia, what do you make of that? what's your take on this case? is irin right, that ...

Violation of their first amendment rights. big stakes. mother jones recently put it, will the supreme court kill public employee unions? is that a possibility in this case, dahlia? >> again, there's probably going to be a way, if the court decides not to do the most dramatic thing it can do, to find a sort of -- thread the needle here and do something in this case that will only relate to not every single public sector union in the country, but only home health care workers which is what issue here in illinois. but they can. certainly i think it's fair to say there were four votes it looked li...

Religious conscience, and on the other hand as irin said, open the flood gates to religious corporation owners imposing all kinds of religious constraints on their employees regardless of their xleer's religious beliefs. i think we're trying to find some middle way. chief justice roberts talked a little bit, could we make this specific to the green family who owned hobby lobby because it's a family held, closely held corporation? if they're trying to go small, they may do that. if they go big, the consequences in either direction are huge. >> dahlia, to me my head spins when i hear you or anyb...

Forgiving the child to her husband. there was overanalytical dissertations about the commercial. >> important cultural messages conveyed everywhere we look, whether on billboards, advertisements, how politicians are treated. these are all materials of our political consciousness. i think in that case it's a good thing. it is important to note as critic whose lean in have noted, when women don't apologize, when they exhibit traditionally male characteristics, there's a blowback from how men are treated. >> or in particular from a political standpoint we've seen studies as well that if women imm...