Late June is a pretty awful time, because that’s when The Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) rulings are typically announced. The Supreme Court, with its unchecked omnipotence, makes me nervous. I wait on tenterhooks to find out which of my rights will be taken away every June.
One decision that I knew was coming soon was the ruling on Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby. If you’re not familiar with the case, I wrote about it when SCOTUS decided to hear it here.
Basically, Hobby Lobby and a few other corporate holier-than-thous challenged the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide birth control for their employees on religious grounds.
The decision came out today. SCOTUS sided with the corporations. The 5 to 4 majority decision said that privately held corporations with religious convictions have the right to withhold certain forms of birth control from their female employees if they go against corporate religious beliefs (if it were up to me, “corporate religious beliefs” wouldn’t even be a thing).
Really, this decision isn’t all that surprising since in the Citizens United ruling, SCOTUS said that corporations are people. As people, corporations have the same rights to freedom of speech as, well, people.
I simply cannot tackle the Hobby Lobby ruling head on without the use of satire and dripping sarcasm, so here are some positive things for us womenfolk that are sure to come.
1. We no longer have to think for ourselves.
Women, good news–we can rely on our employers to plan our families for us! We don’t have to decide how big, if or when we want a family. Our employers can legally do that for us. If we don’t want or can’t afford to have children, it doesn’t matter. Christian employers can be all up in our reproductive rights and there’s nothing we can do about it. Clearly, corporations know what’s right for us and our families better than we do. Just shut up and let them do the talking.
2. Standardized health care isn’t required.
If we work for a non-family owned for-profit business, we can get birth control as part of the Affordable Care Act. If we work for a religious non-profit or privately owned company that’s religious, they don’t have to provide it. So, if we want less health care options than comparable employees at other companies, all we have to do is go work for Hobby Lobby or any other privately held religious company. They can totally force their ideology on us, even when it comes to our medical care, regardless of our own beliefs.
Corporate beliefs are way more important than individual beliefs anyway, because corporations create jobs or something. I don’t know; I’m just a dumb girl. If it wasn’t for corporations, we wouldn’t have any rights to take away!
3. Discrimination based on gender is fine.
Men–The Hobby Lobby ruling essentially only affects women and all the babies we’ll be forced to have now, so you menfolk can just sit back and relax. It’s not like you have a role in raising babies or anything. Men will still have a full range of health care options.
Women, on the other hand, depending on what company we work for, will not. If we live in small towns and the only employer available to us is a private Christian business, well, too bad. We should move someplace with more employment opportunities if we don’t want to have babies.
4. It opens the door for all sorts of complaints.
Privately owned, for-profit companies, Christian or otherwise–the great news is that this ruling paves the way for all sorts of other complaints based on religion. You don’t agree with vaccinations, stem cell research or blood transfusions? No problem! Pretty soon, I’m sure you’ll be able to take away your employees’ rights to all life-saving treatments if they clash with of your religious convictions. Think of all the money you’ll save by not providing a full range of health care options.
The Hobby Lobby ruling only applies to a couple of forms of FDA-approved IUDs and birth control that prevent pregnancy, which Hobby Lobby and people/corporations like them call “abortion pills” even though they have nothing at all to do with abortion.
However, since the foot is now firmly in the door, I expect that all other forms of birth control will be taken away soon. This decision is really just an arbitrary line in the sand and can be easily pushed to accommodate your own brand of moral policing for your corporate workforces. Eventually, all reproductive rights will probably belong to employers and not to the owner of the actual vagina.
5. We can have all the babies we want (or don’t want)!
Women, go on and have that baby. Have three! Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court encourage us to reproduce, regardless of our circumstances. It’s not like we have any other options now that contraception is unavailable. Of course, don’t expect Hobby Lobby to actually pay for any expenses related to child care, support public services or any sort of minimum wage increase. The expense of raising children is up to us. We’re doing the lawd’s work here, women!
Next up for Hobby Lobby: Pushing Bible study in public schools, because it’s not like that’s exactly what the Establishment Clause is meant to prevent. Why stop at health care? Hobby Lobby’s beliefs for everyone! If you don’t like it, move to another country or figure out a way to become a man (but we won’t pay for that either).
Ugh. That’s about all the sunshine and bullshit I can stand. Seriously, SCOTUS majority, get your fucking heads out of your asses. Listen to Ginsburg on this one.
To Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood Specialties, Alliance Defending Freedom and the rest of you assclowns trying to take our reproductive freedom away and replace it with your morals, this is for you:
In case you didn’t catch it the first time, here’s two more:
Fish Of Gold 