In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: The RFRA and How It Applies to Non-Profit Organizations and Their Objections to the Accommodation of the Affordable Care Act Contraceptive Mandate.

Chapter 4 traces the trajectory of competing policy frames in congressional debates over the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although the ACA was not the first attempt to ensure contraceptive coverage, it was easily the most visible, sweeping, and significant. Utilizing content analysis and in-depth interviews with policymakers, this chapter shows that the debate over contraceptive regulation in the ACA shifted course over time—from being predominantly about health care at the start to being predominantly about religious freedom after the law’s passage. Additionally, the analyses presented in this chapter suggest that a policymaker’s gender was far more important than their partisanship in shaping how they chose to frame issues related to contraception under the ACA. Taken together, these findings reveal the dramatic extent to which rhetoric about the ACA’s contraception requirements was dynamic (rather than static) and shaped by gender.

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Contraception Coverage in the Courts

The Politics of the Pill ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190675349.003.0005 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 84-102

Author(s):

Rachel VanSickle-Ward ◽

Kevin Wallsten

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Birth Control ◽

Affordable Care Act ◽

Religious Freedom ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

The Affordable Care Act ◽

And Gender ◽

Hobby Lobby ◽

Over Time

Chapter 5 examines how the issue of contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was debated in the Supreme Court. Relying on a detailed content analysis of the amici curiae briefs, oral arguments, decisions and dissents presented during Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc. and Zubik v. Burwell, this chapter shows that while “religious freedom” frames were almost entirely absent in the initial debates over the ACA, they became the dominant approach to understanding the contraception issue during litigation. Moreover, the evidence presented here demonstrates that the gender of the participants in these cases shaped their framing choices in ways that transcended their support or opposition for the ACA’s contraceptive mandate. In other words, the dominant frame of the debate over contraception coverage evolved considerably over time, and gender considerations were paramount in dictating how different actors chose to frame their discussions of the birth control mandate.

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