Corporate Personhood and Religious Rights- Exploring Legal and Ethical Dimensions

Corporate Personhood and Religious Rights- Exploring Legal and Ethical Dimensions

Corporations and the First Amendment Right

The First Amendment rights are not only a preserve of the people but also corporations and other business entities. A myriad of court decisions that grant corporations not just First Amendment acts but also the Fourth, fifth, and Seventh Amendments have had implications on the discourse of personifying corporations. By giving corporations First Amendment rights, courts have effectively granted corporations the same political rights as human beings (Shaw, 2016). Court decisions are binding, which means such decisions blur the distinction between real and artificial/legal persons. That means the right to corporate religious affiliation is equally protected under the law.

Since corporations enjoy similar political and moral rights as persons, they also ought to bear similar responsibilities. The requirement to cater to contraceptive health under the Affordable Care Act does not take away corporations’ right to religious beliefs. The profit-making corporations are legal entities that ought to comply with common law and leave contraceptive use to individuals to decide.

Corporations and Religious Beliefs

As stated earlier, corporations have a right to practice religious beliefs. However, the owners’ religious beliefs do not extend to the corporation. In some cases, a company has many stakeholders who may not share religious beliefs (Shaw, 2016). The corporation remains a separate legal entity from individuals in such circumstances, whereas the right to religious liberty only applies to the corporation.

The Hahns and the Right to Exercise Their Religion

The principle of a corporation being a separate legal entity applies to Hahn’s case. Their corporation is a secular, for-profit organization; hence it does not belong in the same category as religious nonprofit organizations (Shaw, 2016). The owners’ strong religious beliefs and convictions on contraception do not impact the organization regardless of their correctness or lack thereof.

Did Congress Intended the RFRA to Apply to Corporations

Legally, corporations can be viewed as artificial/legal persons. The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 sought to alienate religion from government restrictions (Brown, 2015). The act was created to nullify an Oregon court ruling that gave organizations the go-ahead to deny people with a history of hard drug usage employment opportunities. Notably, some communities in the US, especially black Americans, use certain drugs such as marijuana for religious purposes (Shaw, 2016). The act banned the government from interfering with people’s spiritual practices unless there was a compelling need. Initially, the RFRA only targeted government institutions and not corporations.

Does the Requirement That Their Health Care Policies Include Contraception Impose a “Substantial Burden” on These Companies’ Exercise of Religion

The government requirement that corporate health care policies include coverage for contraception does not amount to overburdening religious institutions’ practice of religious beliefs. First, some of the recommended contraceptive methods, such as UIDs, and emergency pills, do not kill the fetus, as argued by some religious companies (Shaw, 2016). Healthcare experts opine that these methods prevent fertilization of the egg; hence no life is destroyed. Therefore, comprehensive expert scrutiny of the arguments presented by religiously affiliated companies will reveal that their views are based on an outright wrong premise. The Supreme Court did not consider this argument, but any future scrutiny will potentially reveal that the government’s requirement has not trampled upon religious rights.

Privately Held Company Status and This Issue

The Supreme Court decision effectively allowed privately held companies the freedom to exclude contraceptive care from their care plans. Private companies, unlike public companies, have a free hand on matters of contraception going forward (Liptak, 2014). Besides, private ownership means it is impossible to tilt ownership away from religious families to implement contraceptive use. There is little activists, and other pro-contraceptive stakeholders can do to change the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the two companies.

References

Brown, C. (2015). Free Exercise of Religion by Closely Held Corporations: Implications of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Shaw, W. H. (2016). Business ethics: A textbook with cases. Cengage Learning.

Liptak, A. (2014). Supreme Court rejects contraceptive mandate for some corporations. New York Times, 30.

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In 2012, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act. Under this law, employer-sponsored healthcare policies include contraceptive coverage. Although the Obama administration had exempted religiously affiliated nonprofit employers, for-profit companies remain bound by the requirement. Two for-profit companies, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties challenged this rule, claiming that it infringed on their beliefs. (Shaw, 2017, p. 191). Read Case 5.4 “Corporations and Religious Faith” in the textbook on pages 191-192 and address the following questions in a paper that will be submitted to Dropbox:

Although corporations are not human beings, they have a number of legal and political rights. Do they also have a First Amendment right that “Congress shall make no law…. Prohibiting the free exercise” of their religion? If so, was that right violated in this case?
Is it possible for corporations to have religious beliefs, or can only human beings have such beliefs? If corporations can be said to have religious beliefs, are those beliefs the same as the beliefs of the owners? What if there is not a single owner, but a number of different stockholders? What about the religious beliefs of the managers or employees- are they relevant to determining what the corporation believes?
The Hahns have a right to exercise their religion. Does this right transfer to any corporations they own?
Are corporations “persons”? Do you think that Congress intended the RFRA to apply to corporations?
Does the requirement that their health care policies include contraception impose a “substantial burden” on these companies’ exercise of religion? Explain why or why not.
Both companies are privately held, meaning that their shares do not trade on the stock market. Does this fact affect the issue? If so, how?