United States Supreme Court arguments over federal health care policy were nearly finished on Tuesday when Justice Anthony Kennedy challenged Obama administration lawyer Donald Verrilli on abortion rights, according to the Associated Press.
"Under your view, a profit corporation ... could be forced in principle to pay for abortions," said Kennedy, often the deciding vote on the nine-member court, the AP reported.
While defending the part of the 2010 healthcare law known as Obamacare that requires companies to cover birth control as part of employee health insurance, Verrilli said it was unlikely the government would demand corporations pay for abortions, according to the AP.
"I thought that's what we had before us," John Roberts, the conservative chief justice, told Verrilli, the AP reported.
By the end, it was clear that clouding the legal test of whether for-profit corporations have religious rights was the country's enduring fight over abortion, a factor that could influence the outcome on the conservative court, according to the AP.
The case argued on Tuesday was brought by two family-owned companies who objected on religious grounds to the Obamacare mandate that employer-sponsored insurance cover certain emergency birth control methods, such as the "morning-after pill, the AP reported.
Roberts said the companies fighting the birth-control requirement believe some of those methods amount to abortions, according to the AP. The companies contend that some of the methods do more than prevent conception but destroy fertilized eggs.
"It is their sincere belief and we don't question that," Verrilli answered, the AP reported. He said that federal and state laws barring public funding for abortions did not consider the disputed forms of contraception to be abortion.
Tuesday's 90-minute session, lengthened from the usual 60 minutes to account for the many issues at stake, was tense and hard fought, according to the AP.
