Hobby Lobby, who has gained notoriety in the news for leading the legal challenge against the birth control mandate of US President Barack Obama's pet healthcare law, was discovered to have invested with indirectly investing pharmaceutical firms that produces birth control medication, The Associated Press said.
According to Labor Department documents and a review of fund portfolios, the arts and crafts store chain's 401(k) plan has several mutual funds that routinely invest in the firms which produce intrauterine birth control devices, emergency contraceptive pills and drugs used in abortion procedures. The 401(k) plan reportedly include funds that has investments in morning-after-pill Plan B maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, of which Hobby Lobby has vehemently opposed to covering the birth control options for its employees. Aside from Teva, the mutual funds' other holdings include Cytotec and Prostin E2 maker Pfizer and abortion-inducing Cervidil maker Forest Laboratories.
The details of their investments were disclosed in an annual filing to the Employee Benefits Security Administration in December, AP said. The Employee Benefits Security Administration is an agency of the Labor Department that oversees retirement plans sponsored by employers.
President Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood Action Fund said about the latest revelations in a statement, "This is the height of hypocrisy. Hobby Lobby's CEO wants to deny the company's 13,000 employees access to affordable birth control, while investing in pharmaceutical companies that make it."
Hobby Lobby spokeswoman Emily Hardman has not responded to AP's request for comment immediately, Mother Jones magazine was touted by the news wire outlet as the first to report about the information regarding Hobby Lobby's investments.
Hobby Lobby and owner the Green family has taken their opposition to the birth control mandate in court, and argued that they can exercise their religious rights to not offering birth control coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices used to prevent pregnancy after conception, AP said. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the case by June.
