There are some who would have you believe the Hobby Lobby SCOTUS decision was about religious freedom. Here is why they are wrong.
From http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.
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The key word in that paragraph is individual. Despite Mitt Romney’s assertions corporations are not people.
The SCOTUS decision that gave Hobby Lobby and her fellow litigants the right to limit types of birth control the company can provide to their female employees is not about religion, it is about corporate power, corporate perks, corporate over reach, and corporate greed.
While those who will suffer from this decision are women the decision is not really about women, except that we make convenient scapegoats when the time comes to expand corporate privilege.
It’s not about the methods in question being abortive. The science is clear that the methods are not. It’s not about the ACA – except the ACA grants women a measure of equality in some of their health care decisions.
The 5-4 decision is by accident an addition to the never ending war on women.
The 5-4 decision is about corporations forging the legal path to constitutional rights previously upheld only for the individual. One Amendment down… 25 to go.
If that is too complex of a theory to wrap one’s head around let’s talk about how the decision imposes moral judgement, harms women, and is overall sketchy legalize.
Hobby Lobby says they will provide the type of birth control to their employees that they feel is acceptable. The Supreme Court said okay that is fine, you can discriminate and marginalize women without penalty.
To ask a company who chooses to provide health insurance to its employees to pay for all types of birth control legally available is no different than providing that employee access to a primary care physician. Paying for an IUD or a Plan-B type prescription medication is not forcing a company to go against its religious beliefs. It is a company not a person. The company has no beliefs. The people who run the company might, but the company itself has none.
If we would protest a company refusing to hire a disabled person, our protest should be equal when a company imposes the “moral” will of their board of directors on women. If the company cannot tell the employee that on their hours away from the company they are not allowed to have sexual intercourse, they should also not be able to tell women that they cannot have an IUD.
It really is that simple. You cannot force an employee to do what you want them to do with their benefits. It is a right they’ve earned because you’ve granted it to them. If you can’t tell them they can only go to Mexico on their vacation days (benefit) then you also cannot tell them that they are prohibited from using an IUD.
Rush Limbaugh, “Conservative” talk radio host came up with a brilliant solution to the problem of restricting what type of birth control a woman can have access to:
“And again, pregnancy is something that you have to do to cause. It doesn’t just happen to you while you’re walking down the street, except in this case of sexual abuse. But in the normal, everyday flow of events, pregnancy requires action that has consequences. Yet we treat it as a great imposition that women need to be protected from. It’s a sickness, it’s a disease, it’s whatever, and there’s gotta be a pill for it. Yet they wouldn’t have the problem if they didn’t do a certain thing. It’s that simple.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/07/02/rush-limbaugh-resolves-hobby-lobby-controversy-no-sex/
I suppose we could take Rush’s suggestion, except….there is no official position on medication that enhances a man’s sexual prowess by companies like Hobby Lobby or the conservative movement which insists that there is no war on women.
These same health insurance plans that deny women their choice of birth control do so without taking into account that a woman’s body can benefit from birth control even if she is not having sex. The answer MUST be for all of you whores to stop having sex!
Except… these companies provide men ED medication without questioning what the men plan to do with that erection once it happens. Men are not asked if they are married, or engaged, or in a committed monogamous relationship. Hell, without those questions one could reach the conclusion that Viagra promotes promiscuity!
Except…..
It is OK for men to be promiscuous, it is just not okay for the women they are sharing their chemically enhanced erections with to manage their own uterus. Or to plan when or if to be pregnant. Or to not suffer from crippling periods or face having a partial or full hysterectomy because the contraception that could ease their suffering is against the beliefs of the men who run the companies.
A pickle isn’t it?
Hobby Lobby doesn’t sell pickles. They sell crafts. If you love a woman, if you are a woman, you might want to consider getting your glue and glitter elsewhere.
Aphrodite Brown