WashU Expert: SCOTUS should not have punted on Zubik v. Burwell
On May 16, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the Zubick vs. Burwell case, a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement for employers, back to the lower courts for further examination, leaving women employees and students at workplaces around the country in limbo, says Elizabeth Sepper, associate professor of law and expert on health law.
‘Hobby Lobby’ decision will have far-reaching effects, unintended consequences
Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case is the corporate equivalent of the road to Damascus, says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Many more corporations will find religion to opt out of regulation that affects their bottom line,” Sepper says. “Before Hobby Lobby, businesses lost claims to fire pregnant women, refuse to promote non-Christians, discriminate against gays, and pay below the minimum wage. “After Hobby Lobby, they seem likely to succeed.”
New SCOTUS brief argues Hobby Lobby’s request is unconstitutional
The popular arts and crafts store Hobby Lobby is seeking a religious exemption from covering certain forms of contraception it would be required to provide under the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. The case is headed to the Supreme Court, with oral arguments set to begin this spring. “Granting the exemption would shift the cost of accommodating Hobby Lobby’s religious exercise to employees who do not share its beliefs,” argues Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Such cost-shifting violates the Establishment Clause.” Sepper is one of several experts who have authored an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court arguing the unconstitutionality of Hobby Lobby’s request.
Contraception mandate debate leads to worrisome ‘corporate conscience’ concept, law professor warns
The controversy and legal battles surrounding the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act have led to a new – and worrisome – legal concept: the idea of a “corporate conscience,” warns Elizabeth Sepper, who teaches at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.
New opt-out proposal a ‘live and let live solution’ for contraception mandate
The Obama administration has proposed letting
religiously affiliated non-profit businesses and institutions opt-out of
the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act. “The Obama
administration has bent over backward to accommodate the concerns of
some religiously affiliated businesses,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD,
health law expert and professor of law at Washington University In St.
Louis.
Who pays? The wage-insurance trade-off and corporate religious freedom claims
Corporations’ religious freedom claims against the
Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate miss a “basic fact
of health economics: health insurance, like wages, is compensation that
belongs to the employee,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert
and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Sepper’s scholarship explores the interaction of morality, professional
ethics, and law in medicine.
Contraception fight not just ‘a Catholic thing’ says Inazu in USA Today
First amendment expert John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, argues in a USA Today opinion column that evangelicals are wise to join the legal fight over the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraception mandate.