Supreme Court Circus Continues With Hobby Lobby Ruling

Supreme Court Rules Hobby Lobby Personhood Trumps a Person's PersonhoodThe horrifying implications of today’s Supreme Court decision (BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC.) is an incredible shattering of a women’s protection of privacy and personal choice. However, this gut wrenching and mind boggling decision’s true repercussions are yet to be fully realized. This awful and obviously flawed decision can easily be construed to now branch off into a myriad of arbitrary “religious or person choices” that a company will be able to impose on its employees. This will open the flood gates for a huge variety of other lawsuits by companies to justify their will to take away rights from their workers. This will also create a flurry of suits and challenges against the ADA. If one part of the ADA can be challenged and overturned such as the mandatory coverage of birth control to do something as opaque as “religious objections” what else can be challenged? The answer, everything can. Using the same belief, because religion isn’t logic, people or corporations now have an opening to challenge anything and everything based off of “religious belief”.

Not only that, the Supreme Court just ruled that Hobby Lobby can now legally break the law. The ADA was specifically designed to guarantee a certain set of healthcare standards that has been deemed absolutely vital to the health and well-being of American citizens.  This Supreme Court decision states that Hobby Lobby no longer has to FOLLOW THE LAW because they have some kind of vague religious objection. This is truly mind boggling. There is over 50 years of very sound scientific study showing that birth control offers a large array of health benefits, treatments, management, and control. Overall, countries are better because of it.

Taking a look at the entire idea of someone’s freedom, we also see the hypocrisy in this decision. People have the right, and the freedom, to make decisions for themselves. This right however, ends with them. They do not have the right to take away the decisions and freedoms of others. This is exactly what this type of decision makes. It says that an employee does not have the right to make decisions regarding their own birth control but the company they work for does. You are not granting freedom when that “freedom” takes away the freedom and choice of another. Simple as that.

The damage that the Supreme Court has been doing to this country is ridiculous. It is now grossly obvious that these majority rulings of the Supreme Court are bought and paid for. Over the last few years they have systematically dismantled a person’s rights. When such basic fundamental human rights are stripped so a companies can save a few dollars there can be no doubt that the Supreme Court has failed us. Our democracy has failed us. Our government has failed.

Our only course now is to oust those corrupt politicians that support and praise these decisions that shatter our basic human rights. The people of this country fought, bled, and died to secure basic human rights that are being stripped away one after another. With the completely polarized politics now it is very easy to see the terrible excuses for human beings that support these decisions that take away our rights. These are the politicians that need to be called out and cast out of positions of power. Those that speak out against these atrocities need to be lifted up and put into those political positions to further improve this country.

However, removing corruption from our government is only the beginning of the solution. We must stay informed about those we elect to make this country better. When those politicians begin to falter and cave to the corporate influence we must call them out until they represent the people, not the corporations.

To prosper we must have personal rights, not corporate rights. To prosper we must have free speech, not monitored and metered communications. To prosper we must remove money from politics and put the public back into politics. To prosper we must have a free and independent media, not corporate funded propaganda channels. To prosper we must support and respect one another. To prosper we must have compromise and consensus, not hard lining and bullying. To prosper we must be informed and vote. So please make sure you are registered to vote. If you are registered make sure that those around you are registered. Support the creation of a national holiday on Election Day. The more we vote, the more power we wield. With this power we must change the direction of this country before it is too late.

If you can do more than vote and get others to the polls I would also encourage you to actively avoid going to any stores that support discrimination and the stripping of human rights. Make no mistake: Freedom is having the freedom to disagree and still have the same choices. If enough consumers stop buying their produces and using their services they will be unable to pay our politicians and Supreme Court justices to undermine our personal rights. It is high time we stop paying these companies and corporations to undermine their own employees and customers.

Contraception is About Women’s Health Not Politics

women-concerned-about-health-careWe have all heard the arguments recently and they are getting louder and louder. The most recent attempt at hamstringing women’s health care came at the hands of a horribly conceived and widely misconstrued bill known as the Blunt Bill. Even though it was narrowly defeated (51 for to 48 against), I think it is important to take a moment to talk about what this bill and other legislation like it would really do. In many ways it is amazing to even see birth control and contraception even being an issue. This argument was out in politics a quarter century ago. It not only seemed to be settled but we also have seen decades of benefit from birth control being widely available and accessible. As this proves our memories are short and our reason can be clouded. Let’s take a loot at a few of the main political arguments.

Contraception is Used For Much More Than Prevention of Conception

Different kinds of contraception are used for more than just birth control by millions of women. The Pill is used to alleviate a range of women’s medical conditions. To assume contraception is strictly used to stop conception would be to exclude nearly half of all women who use it.

Depending on what study you look at (or which side of the argument you are on), upwards of 15-20% of women taking contraception do so for purely non birth control related reasons. This number is impossible to narrow down since every study has minor variations in what and who meets their criteria. Regardless of this though, the fact remains that millions of American women use contraception for other reasons than birth control.

There is a reason contraception has been touted as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Impacts go far past the simple impact of stopping conception. Attempting to legislate contraception from a standpoint of birth control misses the real crux of the issue and therefore misses the real consequences or benefits.

Stop Legislating Religion

Religious beliefs should not be put into legislation. In fact legislation based of belief or faith should be cleared completely off the table. In a time of technology, information and the ability to process huge amounts of information, we should be legislating from facts and data:

  • It would cost an estimated 18 billion dollars a year in unintended births that would need to be covered by families, insurance companies, or the government.
  • There is no quantifiable data whatsoever to suggest that having access to contraception turns women into mindless rampant fornicators. In fact, if this was the case, perhaps contraception would have to be covered by insurance companies just as Viagra is.
  • If women can no longer afford to treat medical conditions prevented by this medicine, larger health care expenses would loom in these women’s futures.
  • And what of the quality of life for unwanted children, especially those that end up with severe psychological damage because their parents cannot care for them. What is the cost of foster care for 18 years of a child’s life?
  • Can we discount the responsibility of the great many Americans that know they cannot afford or otherwise give a child what is necessary and need to have a good childhood and family experience? What about the majority of Americans, who understand they can only afford one or two children. More children than they can afford means less opportunity for everyone in the family.
  • Republicans should certainly understand that what this legislation entails is a corporation, contracting with another corporation (the insurance company), and having the ability to tell the second corporation how to run its business, while possibly interfering with state legislation requiring insurance companies to cover this prescription in the same way it covers other prescriptions.

And if you are just not the “show me the facts” kind of person and want to go from the gut, go with your belief. Pope Benedict XVI has told you what your belief should be by saying that healthcare is an “Inalienable Right” and said it’s the moral responsibility of all nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens.” I doubt the Pope meant only those that can afford it, should get it.

When Advocating Freedom Don’t Legislate Against It

Another big side of this argument that continues to astound me is that the same groups that shout so loudly about freedom are the ones pushing so hard to eliminate freedoms for anyone that might have a different opinion.

Freedom : Noun ~ Ability to act freely – a state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any undue restraints or restriction.

Freedom talks about an individual’s right to choose what is best for them, not the right of a corporation or religion to dictate what is best for that individual person.

This is why the government, corporations, and religious organizations should not interfere with the insurance companies they partner with in covering contraception. The individual person can make a choice based on their own beliefs, ideals, health conditions, lifestyle choices, or any other reason whether or not they will use contraception.

It is not the employer’s business what a person’s life is outside of their job. It’s not the church’s right to have intimate details on its employee’s health. Our health care system is such that the majority of Americans receive health insurance through their employers. Your employer should not determine what will be covered by a third party healthcare plan.  It is up to the government to make sure we have access to the best health care and the personal freedom to choose what is best for us.

Further Reading About The Benefits of Birth Control