The thing I wish more people understood about this issue: Most fertilized eggs never reach the implantation stage. If preventing implantation constitutes an abortion then the vast majority of all “pregnancies” end in miscarriages long before the woman knows she’s pregnant.
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But let’s be clear about this, one of the methods of birth control the Hobby Lobby owners object to because they “believe” it causes “abortion” is the IUD.
As a practical matter, if you are a woman over 40 and you don’t want invasive surgery to get your tubes tied (which carries its own risks), your doctor is going to recommend using an IUD for birth control because at that point the risk of stroke from using the pill starts to get significant. Obviously many younger women use them too: they are very safe, and you don’t have to remember to take a pill every day. And they may also have a medical history that makes the pill more dangerous for them, personally, such as a history of migraine headaches.
Bottom line: the Hobby Lobby owners are refusing to cover a form of birth control that may be the only safe form of birth control (other than condoms) for some women.
However, that’s beside the point. I could believe that the use of antibiotics is against my religion and decide that my employees health plan shouldn’t cover the use of antibiotics lest it tempt them to imperil their immortal souls. This isn’t that far-fetched, there are religions that prohibit blood transfusions and even religions that prohibit any form of medical intervention except bandaids and ice. Though employers following the latter type of religions will probably not bother offering health insurance at all.
As for me, I believe that the owners of Hobby Lobby’s determination to push this issue is a grievous sin and that they will burn in hell for all eternity unless they repent and take action to correct this wrong. And until they do, I will shun them by refusing to ever shop in any of their stores ever again.
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Would it change your opinion again to know that some of the contraceptives in question are considered to be the safest for a significant population of women?
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To be honest, the Supreme Court has never been guided by anything else, even when it was delivering actual progressive verdicts. Most of the time though, the Supreme Court has been a conservative weapon against popular legislation, as the Roberts Court has repeatedly demonstrated.
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Though I sort of like the “Hobby Lobby” theme song. It seems I’ve heard it somewhere before:
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‘Ev’ry sperm is sacred/ Ev’ry sperm is great/ When a sperm is wasted/ God gets quite irate…’
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I use an IUD to control the pain and growth of endometriosis; not for birth control. Even though my employer gets to decide what form of health insurance I’m allowed to have I’m glad they still allow my doctor and me make my health care decisions.
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The more holistic issue here is one of two things. Either…
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One person or a group of people within a for-profit corporation not labeled or identified as a religious organization is allowed to use a religious precedent and viewpoint to limit or mandate the compensation package of its employees OR
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An employer is using their religious viewpoint to determine what portion of an employee’s health care package is deemed covered or un-covered.
Either way its a problem. Take the first perspective…Any religious viewpoints cannot be used to mandate a corporate outlook or perspective. What if the CEO was Muslim and mandated the dress code for all women employed to wear proper muslim attire for women? What if the CEO as an atheist determined that religious holidays were no longer acceptable paid days off or OT eligible? These are extreme examples yes, but the ramifications are clear. One’s personal belief system should not be used to determine corporate policy for all employees.
On the second perspective…The Employer should not get to determine what type of birth control or any medication is covered. That is the determination of a medical professional who decides what type of birth control/meds is best for their patient. Additionally the benefits package that includes health coverage is a compensation for services, and by right the ownership of it is in the hands of the employee.
Think of this argument slightly differently, that is change some of the parameters, but keep the core in tact.
I have a Death Benefit/Life Insurance policy. My employer contributes to it as part of a sponsored funding, I pay a nominal amount to buy the coverage, my employer reimburses me a certain portion as part of “Empployer covered” insurance. So maybe they cover the first 100k, but I want 200k of coverage. So they pay $10 a month for the first 100k, and I pay an additional $10 a month to give myself 200k in total coverage. I name my same sex partner as the beneficiary. Imagine my employer now says “We do not believe in the moral correctness of a same sex marriage or an inter-racial marriage, and therefore no beneficiary can be a same sex partner or people not of the same race. We will not pay out a death benefit to those people. Only a traditional opposite sex same race married parter can recieve the benefit.”
People would be up in arms. All people. Not just women because it only effects their lady bits…ALL PEOPLE would consider this bullshit. Because it is.
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I’m going to guess that you might be wrong there about Shepard Smith.
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You are correct, of course, which is a problem.
I know that this is an elementary point, but the fact that we really have no idea about the outcomes of cases heard before the SC indicates a rather enormous defect in that system. The Constitution and prior legal precedent form the supposed bedrock of the judicial act in this country. When the Supreme Court functions like another branch of the ideologically-driven Congress, then the only thing that really matters is that your ‘team’ has more justices than the opposing ‘team’, the law can go fuck itself.
For anyone who believes that judicial decisions should be informed not by ideology, but the constitutional and precedential frameworks (i.e. the law) that we all thought our judicial system was based on, that is really hard to accept.
Twas the only decent Fox News “group” shot that I saw…
It’s not just that the Supreme Court has behaved in a partisan manner throughout its history, it’s that it cannot function any other way. The court’s very structure from the founding ensures that. Placing hope on the personal virtue of a few unelected people to be impartial about the law is a recipe for disappointment because they have way too much power to alter and overturn legislation in the first place. The Supreme Court barely upheld the Affordable Care Act, something that required an extraordinary amount of political effort to get passed, and one vote the other way it would have been dead.
The law is not some neutral, non-ideological thing, which is why we change it all the time to better reflect how we think the world should be. That is also why the Supreme Court shouldn’t be trusted to be the final interpreter of it. They’re appointed based on how much their pet legal theory agrees with whoever is appointing them. We can’t stop people from being ideological biased in their approach to something that is ideological in nature like the law, but we can structure institutions to prevent them from imposing it on the rest of us.
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I agree that the law is not non-ideological, but it is certainly possible to evaluate the constitutionality of a law in a non-ideological manner. The trick, as you correctly suggest, is in how we choose the folks who are responsible for making those interpretations. Obviously, the current system is not adequate: we ask ideological partisans in the Senate to make these decisions and they’re clearly not capable of doing so in a productive manner. So what is the alternative? A poll of ABA members?
On a grander scale, I’m curious about what you think are appropriate/feasible ways to “structure institutions to prevent them from imposing it on the rest of us”?
no but see, if the fertilized egg did not implant through any human action, then “god” did it, and it’s ok.
a load of rubbish, but that’s how they think.
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Man, for a deity who supposedly opposes abortion the Big Guy sure does perform a lot of them.
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In the short term, I think the idea that the law can be interpreted in a non-ideological way should be dropped. Many constitutional amendments do not have a single widespread interpretation about what the Founders intended, and unsurprisingly interpretations fall along contemporary ideological lines. If the law is there to protect ordinary people, then there is nothing wrong with taking a broadly progressive interpretation of what that means.
In the medium term, copy what the Republicans did; pack the court with judges who aren’t going to obstruct progressive legislation. That requires an electoral coalition capable of consistently winning the presidency, congress and the senate, and that coalition is basically a reality for the Democrats as the traditional white base of the Republicans is a shrinking proportion of Americans. Sure it’s rather partisan (if a historical tradition), but to do differently is to surrender the Supreme Court to conservatives who will show no mercy to even the most timidly progressive legislation.
Longer term, that electoral coalition should have its eye on changing the Supreme Court itself (amongst other things). This will probably require constitutional reform, which obviously would not be easy. Things like short judicial term limits, a larger panel of judges, reducing the court’s scope, etc, could all form part of a structural fix. The importance of having a check on a “tyranny of the majority” is undeniable, but the Supreme Court’s power is major overkill. Especially when the court takes a very hostile view of the halfway decent legislation to come out of the Obama administration, while basically giving endless drone wars a free pass.
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My question would be, what if the employer/owners are Christian Scientists? Are they allowed to refuse ALL healthcare based on their deeply held conviction that medical care is unnecessary (i.e. you are ill/injured and your only option is to see a christian scientist “nurse” and pray to heal)?
I realize that this is pretty much covered by Ginsburg’s criticisms, but it’s a significant concern.
And what about my deeply held religious belief in Sithrak? If you’re suffering it’s because he wants you to (thus no coverage at all also).
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At least three of those aren’t even people. 
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I certainly understand the confusion; however, given the political orientations of the majority opinion, I really doubt they needed to be paid off - I don’t think that the 4 conservatives especially need to be bribed into being anti-abortion/choice, because they just are. God help us if a case involving a challenge to Roe V. Wade finds it’s way to the Roberts court, cause then, we’re screwed.
Also, the supreme court can make rulings narrow, the cases just need to be related to constitutional/federal law is all.
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