WASHINGTON  —  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of President Obama’s healthcare law that requires employers to provide insurance covering birth control for women.

The decision, which applies only to a small number of family owned or other closely-held companies, means an estimated several thousand women whose health insurance comes via such companies may have to obtain certain forms of birth control coverage elsewhere.

In a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the justices said the companies can seek an exemption from the so-called birth control mandate of the law known as Obamacare. The companies in the case said they did not object to all birth control but certain methods they said were tantamount to abortion, which they oppose for religious reasons.

In their last decision of the nine-month term, the justices ruled for the first time that for-profit companies can make claims under a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was enacted to protect religious liberty.

In the majority opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said it was difficult to distinguish between closely held corporations and the people who own them. The religious liberty law was not intended to discriminate “against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs,” he wrote.

In reaching its conclusion, the court touched on questions of corporate rights four years after the justices, in a case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, endorsed broad free-speech rights for companies in the campaign finance context.

One of the two cases was brought by arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby Stores Ltd, which is owned and operated by David and Barbara Green and their children, who are evangelical Christians. The other case was brought by Norman and Elizabeth Hahn, Mennonites who own Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp in Pennsylvania. None of the companies that have objected are publicly traded. Hobby Lobby has around 13,000 full-time employees while Conestoga Wood has 950.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the court’s decision “jeopardizes the health of women who are employed by these companies.”

House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, called the ruling “a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives.”  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said his fellow Democrats “will continue to fight to preserve women’s access to contraceptive coverage and keep bosses out of the examination room.”