Hobby Lobby’s Critics say Some of the Companies it Invests in Produce Numerous Contraceptives and Abortion Drugs

A demonstrator in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and opposed to U.S. President Barack Obama’s health-care law contraception requirement holds up a sign outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 25, 2014. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

“Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions … something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one,”  Hobby Lobby founder David Green wrote in an article for USA Today.

Hobby Lobby is so committed to those principles that it’s gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge a provision in the Affordable Care Act that it says requires it to provide access to insurance covering birth control for its employees, some forms of which it equates with abortion.

No wonder then, the glee emanating from some quarters Tuesday when Molly Redden of Mother Jones reported that the company’s retirement plan holds $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that make abortion drugs.

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby’s health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

These companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes Plan B and ParaGard, a copper IUD, and Actavis, which makes a generic version of Plan B and distributes Ella. Other holdings in the mutual funds selected by Hobby Lobby include Pfizer, the maker of Cytotec and Prostin E2, which are used to induce abortions; Bayer, which manufactures the hormonal IUDs Skyla and Mirena; AstraZeneca, which has an Indian subsidiary that manufactures Prostodin, Cerviprime, and Partocin, three drugs commonly used in abortions; and Forest Laboratories, which makes Cervidil, a drug used to induce abortions. Several funds in the Hobby Lobby retirement plan also invested in Aetna and Humana, two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell.

The retirement plan comes with a “generous company match,” which amounted to $3.8 million in 2012.

Investments in these sorts of companies are commonplace for the typical retirement fund. But Hobby Lobby has been arguing that it’s anything but typical.

Hobby Lobby did not comment for the Mother Jones story.

But plenty of other people did.

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SOURCE: GAIL SULLIVAN 
The Washington Post