Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Thank you, Madam President.

I have to dispel some of the myths that are being told about the Hobby Lobby decision.

First of all, one of the biggest distortions I think has been this hashtag campaign #NotMyBossBusiness because before the Hobby Lobby decision--and as now--employers cannot deny their employees access to birth control.

So let's be clear. Employers cannot deny their employees access to birth control. So the #NotMyBossBusiness hashtag and I think some of the statements that are being made on the Hobby Lobby decision are a misrepresentation or distortion of what that decision stands for.

You do not have to take my word for it. In fact, the Washington Post Fact Checker yesterday debunked several of the outrageous claims that are being made about this decision. In fact, here are some of the things we know are true about the Hobby Lobby decision:

``Nothing in the ruling allows a company to stop a woman from getting or filling a prescription for contraceptives.'' ``Nothing in the ruling allows a company to stop a woman from getting or filling a prescription for contraceptives.''

The majority opinion of Hobby Lobby actually states expressly that ``under our cases, women (and men) have a constitutional right to obtain contraceptives.''

In fact, what the Fact Checker found in response to one lawmaker's claim about the Hobby Lobby decision--who claimed that it means employers can restrict the ability of their employees to use contraceptives--the Washington Post stated:

No boss under this ruling has the right to tell an employee that they cannot use birth control. That's simply wrong.

I think that is very important for the American people to understand, for the women of this country to understand.

Also, the Washington Post, when debunking many of the claims made about the Hobby Lobby decision, said: ``Simply put, the court ruling does not outlaw contraceptives, does not allow bosses to prevent women from seeking birth control and does not take away a person's religious freedom.''

In fact, what the decision does is focus on the fact that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was a law that was passed with overwhelming support in the House of Representatives and in this body--in fact, by our count, as I understand it, over a dozen Democrat Members of the current Senate actually supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in some way. It was signed into law by President Clinton. So it used to be bipartisan that we would support religious freedom in this body. The notion that somehow Hobby Lobby as a closely-held corporation would have to give up all their religious beliefs seems to me to be antithetical to what we supported on a bipartisan basis in this Congress, which is the religious freedom of Americans that is reflected in the First Amendment to our Constitution.

In fact, contrary to the misleading rhetoric, the Hobby Lobby decision does not take away a woman's access to birth control. That existed before the Hobby Lobby decision and it exists today. That existed before ObamaCare and it exists today, thankfully.

No employee is prohibited from purchasing any FDA-approved drug or device. Contraception remains readily available and accessible to women nationwide. Prior to ObamaCare passing in this body, over 85 percent of large businesses already offered contraceptive coverage to their employees.

One thing that has not been mentioned is the ObamaCare mandate that has been the subject of the Hobby Lobby decision does not even apply to businesses that are under 50 employees in this country. So there are millions of women for whom the mandate that is addressed in the Hobby Lobby decision does not even apply to.

For lower income women, there are five programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that ensure access to contraception for women, including Medicaid.

In fact, more than 19 million women were eligible for government-supported contraceptive assistance in 2010, and that has not changed.

So for those who would distort the Court's decision and insist that we cannot stand for religious liberty while simultaneously ensuring that women continue to have safe, affordable access to birth control--it is just not true. We can do both and we need to do both on behalf of the American people because people have deeply held religious beliefs, and it was so important to our Founding Fathers that they put respect for religion and protection of people's ability to choose what they believe in in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Americans believe strongly that we should be able to practice our religion without undue interference from the government. That goes to our character. So what happened in the Supreme Court's decision in Hobby Lobby is reaffirming that, but it did not say an employer will somehow now be making the decision whether a woman can have contraception. That is not what it said. In fact, employers have no right under the law to even know what my prescriptions are or any other woman's prescriptions are for contraception. So any suggestion to the contrary is entirely misleading.

The decision applies to closely-held businesses whose owners have genuine religious convictions. In this case, the company's owner, the Green family, agreed to provide coverage for 16 of the 20 contraceptive methods that are required under ObamaCare, including birth control pills. So I want people to understand that. They only had a moral objection to the remaining four methods.

In the narrow ruling, the Court agreed, based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act--an act that was introduced into Congress by the late Senator Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts and then-Congressman Charles Schumer from New York. Again, it was supported by over a dozen of my Democrat colleagues at the time. They brought forth the law because they were concerned at the time about another Supreme Court decision which held that generally applicable laws that have nothing to do with religion could effectively prevent Americans from fully exercising their religious rights. And guess what? It passed a then Democrat-controlled House by voice vote and was approved by a Democrat-controlled Senate by a vote of 97 to 3. There is not much that happens around here 97 to 3.

When President Clinton signed it into law, he said: ``What this law basically says is that the government should be held to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free exercise of religion.''

In the Hobby Lobby decision, the government did not even try to meet that standard. They have tried to meet that standard with other religious organizations, but they did not even try in this situation to contend what the Court found to be genuinely-held religious beliefs on a very limited basis.

There have been a lot of misrepresentations about the breadth of this decision. The Court's majority opinion explicitly states that the ruling does not ``provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice.''

Additionally, the Court said that ``our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer's religious beliefs,'' meaning that someone must show a genuine religious objection. The government can overcome it if they are willing to show that they can do it in a less restrictive way. They did not even try in this case.

Well, some Americans may disagree with the family who owns the Hobby Lobby stores. All Americans believe religious freedom is a fundamental right that should not be abridged. When President Clinton signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, he said:

Our laws and institutions should not impede or hinder, but rather should protect and preserve fundamental religious liberties.

I come to the floor today because I want people to understand this decision. Employers cannot tell you what kind of contraception you can have as a woman. Employers cannot even know what kind of contraception you have as a woman. That is protected under HIPAA laws, privacy laws that are very important.

Finally, this notion that it is not my boss's business--of course an employer cannot tell you that you cannot go fill a prescription for contraception. I think that to suggest otherwise is really to distort what the facts of this case are.

I believe we can protect people's fundamentally-held religious beliefs and provide women safe, effective access to contraception. Because of that, I will be introducing legislation on the Senate floor. That legislation would reaffirm that no employer can restrict an employee's access to contraceptives. Finally, it would also ensure that we look at ways to potentially give women greater access to contraceptives.

The legislation I will be introducing would also ask the FDA to study whether women can purchase contraceptives over the counter and whether it would be safe and effective for adult women to be able to do so. So we should have the FDA look at this issue to see if women can perhaps have even greater access than they do right now.

But the American people need to understand that the Hobby Lobby decision did not change women's access to contraceptives. In fact, under our HIPAA laws, no employer can know what kind of contraception you may have been prescribed or are using. No employer can tell you that you cannot fill a prescription for any kind of contraception that you think is appropriate and that your doctor thinks is appropriate for you.

Finally, I would say our bill also does one other important thing; that is, it repeals the restrictions ObamaCare put on health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts. ObamaCare actually reduced the amount someone can put aside on a tax-free basis to pay for their own health care. ObamaCare also restricted the use of those accounts for purchase of over-the-counter medications. I have had many of my constituents complain to me about this. We would like to eliminate those restrictions and give people greater ability to set aside money on a tax-free basis to pay for their own health concerns, including over-the-counter medications.

One thing I would say finally is that I have heard so much from my constituents about the concerns they have with ObamaCare. I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who voted for ObamaCare, now come to the floor and complain about the Hobby Lobby decision. Well, I would argue that we are where we are today because they decided that ObamaCare was the way to go for health care in this country.

I have heard from a lot of my both male and female constituents about the real concerns they have with ObamaCare that I hope we will debate on this floor. I have heard from people who lost policies they liked, who are paying more for coverage than they were before, have higher deductibles. I have had women write me about concerns that their employer is going to cut their hours because of ObamaCare. Talk about a bad mandate. It redefined the 40-hour workweek. It is now a 30-hour workweek. So people are losing hours.

In my own State of New Hampshire, right now 10 of our hospitals are excluded from the exchange. We are not a very big State. It is a big deal. So some people have lost access to the doctor with whom they had a longstanding relationship or the hospital where they had their first child. Now, if they are expecting their second child and they are on the exchange, that hospital is excluded, and they are in a situation where ObamaCare is restricting women's rights as far as what hospital they can go to, when they could have gone there before.

Those are the real issues as we think about what has happened with ObamaCare. There are so many other issues I could talk about, stories my constituents have written to me. But I would hope the American people understand that employers cannot restrict your access to contraception. We will reassert in our bill that no employer can do that. We will look at the FDA studying whether women can potentially have greater access to contraceptives in a safe and effective manner by looking at whether adult women can safely purchase contraceptives over the counter.

I yield the floor.

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