A bill introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), the “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act” to override the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby ruling failed to get cloture in the Senate today. The Supreme Court ruled in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell that family business owners do not have to violate their consciences in order to earn a living by providing drugs and services to their employees in their healthcare plan, to which they morally object.
This bill seeks to overturn what the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month, and would force family business owners to provide their employees in their healthcare plan drugs and devices that have the potential to kill an unborn child even if they may have moral objections, and despite the protections afforded to them by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It failed to get the sixty votes that were needed to move the bill forward, coming up short at 56-43 votes. We are thankful to the Senators who voted against cloture on this bill, thus protecting the religious freedom of all family businesses.
