Discussion for article #224646
Sometimes birth control pills are prescribed for a limited time and then abruptly halted in order to boost fertility (for patients who are having trouble conceiving). At other times they are prescribed to minimize the pain and discomfort associate with endometriosis. Faith-based medicine has no place in secular healthcare, civic life, or our courts. The men of the Supreme Court should be ashamed of themselves.
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Notice that there aren’t any men attempting to explain how women work or why the Supremes are wrong again. A decision that involves the majority of people in our nation shouldn’t be arrived at without consulting the experts, AKA-the women of America.
The conservative Supremes had the perfect test panel right in front of them with the likes of Ginsburg that is dead on about the effects and consequences.
Have no doubts that these pro-corporate, anti-Obama, anti-woman’s rights judges knew exactly what they were doing and have no second thoughts about their supposed reasoning. They nicked at Obamacare, chopped at women’s rights and bolstered big businesses already huge advantage. There is no mask or veil, this is blatant and the instant reactions to it are as predictable as the gutting of the VRA was.
Not considering the repercussions or not giving a flying fig makes the decisions of this court preposterous.
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The Republicans are talking about impeaching the President, without the slightest justification. But, Supreme Court Justices are just as vulnerable to impeachment as Presidents, and no one is talking about the very justifiable impeachment of the majority of the Supreme Court. I cannot imagine why this is. Justice Thomas has long proven that he is utterly incompetent, and a tool of his right wing masters. Justice Alito is barely better. Justice Roberts has demonstrated zero ability to do his job. Justice Scalia appears to be senile. Yet, not one mention of impeaching a single one of them.
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the gear-stripping of the conservative brain: simultaneously advocate freedom for men and oppression towards women.
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Do I trust the judgment of the USSC? No. Particularly since the decision is based on a false premise. The majority opinion claims that based on the employer’s religious beliefs that birth control is immoral and that the ACA is enabling the immoral act of another. It states over and over that this is a valid religious position for employers to take which misses the point. Where the employer and employee have the same religious beliefs the employer is enabling nothing. Only where the employee’s religious beliefs conflict with the employees is there an issue and who is to say which religious belief is immoral. The reason that the USSC does not directly address the issue is that it is illegal under another law for employers to discriminate against employees based on the employee’s religious beliefs. It is also unconstitutional to have a law give preference to one religious belief as being superior over another religious belief. I do realize that often the one who claims superiority of their religion usually will argue that the others religious belief is not based on religion and thus the use of the term morality. If a person does not want to use birth control based on their religious belief, that is their right. But if another person does want to use it based on their religious beliefs, that is their right to do so also. It is a matter of personal freedom.
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I see your point, but don’t think the religious relativism argument breaks the supreme court decision. What breaks it is two things; one, it discriminates against women - gender discrimination. two it treats a business, which is civically incorporated, thus subject to civil law, as, essentially a club, where the board of directors forces the employees (members) to follow their rules outside the club. one may argue that employees may seek work elsewhere, but then what happens to equal opportunity?
IANAL. And I’m not happy about the decision. But, I read it is singling out contraception only because a mechanism - the exemption for religious organizations - is already in place which would allow the gov’t to accommodate Hobby Lobby without much difficulty. This exemption is not available for transfusions, vaccinations, or etc, and it’s for this reason that the decision does not apply to those procedures. Am I wrong about that?
The fact that the religious exemption is set up this way - creating special exemptions for treatments that are the bugaboo of a particular sect - is troubling as a 1st Amendment issue. But blame for that isn’t really on the Court. Perhaps if the administration extends the exemption to for-profit corporations to resolve the Hobby Lobby situation, as anticipated by the Court, the exemption should be expanded beyond contraception.
…but the K-RATS want to be sure that the testosterone laden, viagra enhanced men have easy access to guns and ammo and women.
Men have needs…
and that need arises whenever they unlimp their dicks…
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The court also considered direct payment by the government, but would have to consider cost impacts which were unknown. They then went to the existing accommodation. This is a 5 to 4 decision. The Court was going to find a way to rule for Hobby Lobby.
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Alito argues that “corporations ‘separate and apart from’ the human
beings who own, run, and are employed by them, cannot do anything.”
And yet, when determining that the Hobby Lobby corporation has religious beliefs because it is closely held by owners with particular religious beliefs, Alito is telling us that corporate religious rights are tied to ownership alone. The beliefs (and religious freedom) of the employees has no standing.
His mention of the employees was a distraction from his decision’s implication that the religious beliefs of a corporation are bought and sold and divided up with ownership share.
The whole notion of corporate personhood is fatally flawed, and this decision was one of many that demonstrates the incompatibility of personhood with a concept that exists primarily to create a legal entity that is separate from any human owners.
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They should be, but I’ll wager that they aren’t. In fact, I suspect that they are quite proud of themselves for being able to put the women in their place yet again. These are the same Republicans who will tell you with a straight face that there is no war on women.
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It’s a part of America’s core beliefs. Haven’t you ever read the founding document:
“We hold these truths to be self evident – that all corporations are created equal – that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights …”
I’m sure that’s what it says – Jefferson being so fond of corporations:
"I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
– Thomas Jefferson, 1816
Or, as Ambrose Bierce so aptly (as always) put it in The Devil’s Dictionary:
Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
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None of this business the SUPREMES have sanctioned has anything to do with religion. It is all and only about slut shaming women --making us as painfully aware as possible that there are whole groups of individuals who think we are immoral for wanting to have sex for any other reason but procreation. It’s not about women’s health and I wish people would stop tiptoeing around with that canard. It’s slut-shaming, pure and simple. imho
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Well, as a woman, I really don’t like seeing these supposedly valid reasons, such as to increase fertility, to minimize the pain of endometriosis, etc., being trotted out because precluding pregnancy is just as valid as any other use of birth control and citing these other uses for birth control just seems to reinforce the idea that precluding pregnancy isn’t as valid.
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Of course, the conservative majority knows that the teabagger-controlled Congress will block any government funding for contraceptives. This is the same sort of bait-and-switch that the five Supreme dissemblers used in the Citizens United decision when it asserted that “transparency” in who is providing the money will preclude any serious impacts to our democracy.
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Not to worry.
HobbyLobby is giving them free cucumbers, three per week.
.
Yep, my God can beat up your God.
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They’re working on equal opportunity. Had a case recently about it regarding admissions to public universities; another 5:4 decision as I recall.
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It’s worse than that. The corporation still (apparently) acts as a shield for the owners and gets to indulge in behaviors that the owners could not necessarily undertake as individuals.
But really, it’s foolish to argue the reasoning here, because the reasoning is a crock pasted on after the decision was already arrived at.
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