US Women rally outside Supreme Court for religious liberty

Is this a women's issue? Of course it is! It is about religious liberty, something all women are entitled to be concerned about. Do we want our religious beliefs to be trampled on by the government? The government needs to stop discriminating against us!

Washington D.C., Mar 26, 2014 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Women supporting employers challenging the government's contraception spoke out in support of a vision of women's equality that supports fertility and women's role as employers, as the case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday.

"All issues are women's issues" said Ashley McGuire of The Catholic Association, quoting an earlier statement by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R- N.H.).

"Women are just as entitled to religious liberty as any man, and women have as much of a stake in the outcome of this case as any man."

McGuire was speaking at a March 25 demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building, as the high court heard oral arguments for two appeals challenging a mandate issued by the department of Health and Human Services department under the Affordable Care Act.

The mandate requires that employers provide and pay for drugs and devices including contraception, sterilization, and some products and procedures that cause early embryo death.

Both the Hahn family, the Mennonite owners of Conestoga Wood Specialties, and the Greens, an evangelical Christian family who own and operate the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby, object to the mandate's requirements that it provide and pay for certain drugs that can kill human persons in their earliest stages of development.

While some religious nonprofits and houses of worship have been given an exemption or accommodation by the administration, for-profit businesses have been told they must comply or face fines of up to hundreds of dollars per employee per day.

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