Hobby Lobby Case Affects Us All

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is an affront to women in the continued misguided ideological attempt to gut hard-fought health and reproductive freedoms.  Setting a dangerous precedent, the 5-4 decision ruled that closely held corporations have the right to deny women access to basic, affordable and important health care based on religious freedom guarantees.

Five male justices in a conservative bloc ruled to deny reproductive healthcare in the Hobby Lobby case, including contraception. The three women on the bench dissented.  In fact, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that the exemption sought by Hobby Lobby would "deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage... The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

Now, it seems that some for-profit companies may not be required to pay for certain kinds of contraceptives for their employees, based on the religious freedom rights of those corporations. Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “Protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them.”

It seems that corporations these days are not only defined in general terms as “people,” as Citizens United decided, but seem to have religious liberties as well.  And women who were insured for birth control and other reproductive health services under the Affordable Care Act may not receive those full benefits if these companies employ them.  They will either not have their reproductive health needs met, or they will pay for them out-of-pocket. This is not only unfair, it simply isn’t right.

In addition, last week the Supreme Court struck down a 35-foot clinic buffer zone law in Massachusetts in McCullen v. Coakley. The buffer zone was created to create a measure of safety in response to attacks in 1994 when people were gunned down at reproductive health clinics.

Where does this affront to women end? And, how will the ruling on a corporation’s religious freedom impact other health issues, including those who object to vaccines, hospice care and do-not-resuscitate orders? 

And, what impact will the ruling have on civil rights?  Can women be relegated to second-class status based on theological understandings of gender roles?  Might LGBT people be discriminated against by a business based on one’s religious convictions?  Might the Affordable Care Act be further unraveled based on religious belief?  Will discrimination actually be protected under the law? 

Chuck Hurley of the conservative organization The FAMiLY LEADER responded to the decision with a potentially frightening prediction:  “This is also good news for the 100 or so other religious liberty cases in court right now. I would expect motions for summary judgment to be filed this week in many if not all of those cases, citing this ruling.”

The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, an international bill of rights for women, was established in1967. Calling for an end to discrimination based on gender, it classifies discrimination against women as “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.” Only a handful of nations have refused to ratify this bill of rights: Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga, and, shamefully, the United States of America.

This attack is a step-by-step, piece-by-piece erosion of women’s hard fought equal rights.  It is time to hear what is being said.  It is time to understand what is being done.  And, it is time to fight back. 

My generation fought for the rights of women so that our children, and their children, might one day live in a nation that celebrates equality and justice. We’ve at least earned that much.

So what can we do? First and foremost, learn all you can about women’s struggle for equality.  Educate yourself about America’s first freedom, religious liberty.  Write a letter to the editor of your local paper, and make your case for equality. Organize your friends into a discussion group.  Organize an action. Write to your senators—let them know that you demand a fair and diverse judiciary that values justice for all, including women. Volunteer with an organization that works toward human and civil rights.