Hobby Lobby's employee retirement plan has invested tens of millions with companies that make reproductive healthcare drugs and devices they have sued not to have to fund, because of course it does:
Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).The lawsuit filed by Hobby Lobby, regarding which the Supreme Court heard oral arguments just last week, explicitly objects to having to pay for covering Plan B, Ella, and IUDs.
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.
All nine funds—which have assets of $73 million, or three-quarters of the Hobby Lobby retirement plan's total assets—contained holdings that clashed with the Greens' stated religious principles.Whoooooooooooops!
There are specifically designed investments for investors who want to avoid investing in companies that make abortifacients or do stem cell research. (Likewise there are specifically designed investments for people who only want to invest in sustainably green companies, or those who avoid animal testing, etc.) I'm certain Hobby Lobby knows this. It's just that pharmaceutical investments are so damn profitable.
It's hard being a woman-hating, money-loving conservative Christian corporation these days!
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