Opinion

April 8, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This week features a landmark U.S. Supreme Court hearing that will have dramatic ramifications on religious liberty and the very fabric of the Constitution. The core components of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius center on Obamacare and religious freedom. 

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Time Magazine reported on the events, claiming the case will determine whether both companies “can be exempted from providing contraception coverage to female employees….”

Is this case primarily about providing contraception as Time and other media outlets have reported? No, as both companies have no issue with providing non-abortifacient contraceptives. Of the 20 or so forms of legal contraceptives, four can cause abortions. So both companies are willing to provide their employees with insurance coverage for the 16 other birth control options. 

Yet Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought up a point that shows the level of distraction and obfuscation surrounding this case, the core issue, and the value of human life. She asked if corporations can object on religious grounds to providing contraceptive coverage, then why couldn’t they also object to vaccinations or blood transfusions? 

This case is not primarily about providing contraceptives. It’s about providing contraceptives that kill other human beings. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood maintain the killing of an unborn human being is immoral and unbiblical. They believe the U.S. Government should not compel them to be complicit in the taking of innocent human life. 

Can we equate, as Justice Sotomayor suggests, blood transfusions and vaccinations — which are designed to protect life — with an abortion-causing drug that kills human life? 

To properly answer the question, we must explore the primary purpose of government. And the answer is found in our nation’s Declaration of Independence: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”

Did you catch that? The primary purpose of the American government is to secure those rights given by God. Those rights are inalienable — unable to be taken away by men. There are numerous such rights, but the Declaration vehemently states the primary right on which all other rights exist — the right to life.

To arbitrarily equate Plan B, which can cause abortions before implantation, with a lifesaving treatment such as a blood transfusion is to ignore and reject the fundamental, inalienable right on which our government is based — the right to live. 

Justice Sotomayor’s question follows the mainstream media’s insistence on ignoring the root of the abortion epidemic. Abortion is not primarily about women’s choice. It is not primarily about healthcare. It is not primarily about access to contraception. Abortion is about the willful destruction of a human being, trampling on his or her inalienable right to life. That right is supposed to be protected and secured by our government and our courts, because that right is given by someone higher than ourselves — the Divine.

Justice Sotomayor’s question is a distraction intended to muddy the primary issue. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood are attempting to honor God, our Founding Fathers, and our nation’s founding documents by protecting our inalienable right to life. In a fatal and tragic irony, one of our Supreme Court justices — who was appointed to uphold our founding documents — appears to be upholding and enforcing laws that remove that right from the weakest and most innocent among us.

Author, speaker, and business leader Brian Fisher is the co-founder of Online for Life, a transparent, metric-oriented, compassion-driven organization dedicated to rescuing babies and families from abortion through technology and grace.