#HandsOffMyBC: A ‘Zubik v. Burwell’ Oral Arguments Live-Tweet

The eight Court justices will likely issue a ruling on the challenge to the Affordable Care Act's birth control benefit in June of this year. In the meantime, however, please enjoy my tweet-by-tweet breakdown of Wednesday's oral arguments.

On Wednesday morning, the Obama administration squared off against seven groups of plaintiffs in Zubik v. Burwell Imani Gandy / Rewire

On Wednesday morning, the Obama administration squared off against seven groups of plaintiffs in Zubik v. Burwell, the second direct challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court considered seven cases from various federal courts of appeal, Wednesday’s oral arguments focused primarily on one case, The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell, and it’s not hard to understand why.

The Little Sisters are a group of nuns who under no circumstances would be required to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees due to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which bars the government from regulating benefit plans run by a church. Nevertheless, the emotional appeal of a cadre of innocent nuns who are being bullied by the Obama administration to provide contraception to their employees against their will is palpable, even if the narrative is flatly false.

Aside from the Little Sisters, the challengers are various Catholic and evangelicals schools, charities, and affiliated associations. They all oppose contraception on religious grounds, and they all want the Supreme Court to absolve them of any obligation to comply with the birth control benefit. They want the deal that churches and other houses of worship got—a full exemption from compliance with the law.

But they didn’t get a full exemption. Instead, the Obama administration crafted an accommodation that would enable it to ensure that employees and students would have access to contraception while respecting the religious viewpoints of the objecting organizations.

Whether this accommodation will ultimately be deemed an affront to the organizations’ religious freedoms remains to be seen; the eight Court justices will likely issue a ruling in June of this year.

In the meantime, however, please enjoy my tweet-by-tweet breakdown of the oral arguments: