The groups moved Thursday to file a friend of the court brief in Hobby Lobby’s court battle over a portion of the Affordable Care Act that requires the company to cover the cost of emergency contraceptives for its workers through its employee health plan.
Hobby Lobby argues that the drugs are a type of abortion and that covering the cost of the drugs for its employees would violate the Christian religious beliefs of CEO David Green and his family.
The contraceptives Hobby Lobby takes issue with include Ella and Plan B, commonly known as the week-after and morning-after pills, as well as some types of IUDs.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a nonprofit that claims to represent about 90 percent of all board-certified obstetricians and gynecologists practicing in the United States, filed the brief along with seven other women’s health groups and three academics including James Trussell, senior fellow for the reproductive health advocacy group, the Guttmacher Institute.
The groups moved to get involved in Hobby Lobby’s lawsuit to dispel myths about emergency contraceptives, the brief said. Several anti-abortion and conservative groups have also filed friend of the court briefs in the case in support of the company’s position…