Read Blog for Arizona | Politics from a Liberal Viewpoint for more about contraception

Possibly the most terrible idea to be espoused in the Hobby Lobby furor

July 7, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

There are, of course, a plethora of terrible arguments, bad faith assertions, and vile statements by anti-choicers in the past week to choose from but I have to give the top honor to one Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry for this:

In the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, there was a lot of chatter about how the court had ruled about what healthcare employers should or shouldn’t provide, which leads me to make a small but important terminological point: contraception is not “healthcare”.

I made this point in passing on Twitter and had, I think, the most violent and unhinged response that I can recall, and I’ve gotten into a lot of arguments on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet.

Martha McSally: I support Hobby Lobby decision

July 4, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Ahhh, that’s so cute. Martha McSally pretending to be a lawyer — she claims “I actually took the time to read” the Hobby Lobby decision. Maybe so, but she clearly did not comprehend what she read, and is unaware of related court matters.

Per usual, on the rare occasion McSally actually takes a position on an issue, she tries to straddle the fence on both sides of the issue.

The Tucson Weekly reports McSally’s response to the Hobby Lobby decision Hobby Lobby Decision: Barber & McSally React:

McSally’s take:

I support women’s access to contraception as well as the protection of religious liberty. [Straddle that fence!] Unlike many commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court verdict, I actually took the time to read the opinion and my statement here is based on the facts of the very narrow ruling. At issue is not whether women should have access to contraception without cost, but whether the Obamacare mandates and substantial penalties are the legal way to provide that access. The court ruled that the Obamacare mandate for employers to provide twenty methods of contraception for free, including four post-fertilization methods, substantially burdens the religious freedom of closely held companies owned by individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs that life begins at conception. The court ruled that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which “prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.

The “abortifacient” thing is really an attempt to fool themselves more than anyone else

July 1, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

Libby Anne of Patheos has an excellent run-down of Monday’s Hobby Lobby decision by the Supreme Court. Read the whole thing but I wanted to focus on this part here, which was very well put:

Next question, the majority says that the birth control mandate does place a “substantial burden” on Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs. And this sentence is crucial: “The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients.”

Note how carefully Alito worded that sentence, “according to their religious beliefs” these items are abortifacients. He had to word it this carefully because the four contraceptives at issue (Mirena, Paragard, Plan B, and Ella) are NOT, in fact, abortifacients according to the FDA. This is really crucial. The majority allowed Hobby Lobby to define for itself what in fact causes an abortion. There is a difference, you see, between saying “my religious belief is that abortion is immoral” [the religious belief Hobby Lobby has really pushed hard in all its filings] and saying “my religious belief is that Mirena causes abortion.” The first cannot and should not be challenged by a court, if that’s your belief, that’s your belief. The second is a question of fact, which can be proved or disproved via science. Individuals should not be able to declare that anything they dislike causes abortion and therefore avoid any laws relating to that item. Because there is no steady, safe line to draw between those who think IUDs cause abortions and those who think Tylenol causes abortion. Both are scientifically incorrect statements. For a court to accept the first and throw out the second because it’s “ludicrous” is picking and choosing favorites among religious beliefs, an extremely dangerous path.

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Hobby Lobby is a radical departure from religious exercise jurisprudence

June 30, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

The five conservative activist Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the legal fiction of a corporation, albeit a closely held corporation, possesses religious liberty rights (free exercise), and therefore may “freeload” off of taxpayers by refusing to pay the corporation’s cost of providing for contraceptive coverage offered in its employer provided health care plan, because the board of directors of this closely held corporation hold a deeply personal religious objection to contraceptives.

The Founding Fathers clearly understood and intended that the rights and liberties afforded by the Bill of Rights were individual rights and liberties of citizens. The Founders were wary of the power of corporations, hence the term “corporation” appears nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Corporations were of limited duration, and chartered by the states.

What the conservative activist Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court did today is a radical departure from long-standing free exercise jurisprudence. They engaged in legislating from the bench their own language into the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to give the act a meaning never intended by Congress (see Ginsburg dissent).

This is yet another in a line of decisions by the Roberts Court transforming this country into a corporatocracy ruled by an über-rich wealthy elite plutocracy. Individual rights and liberties are secondary to the rights and liberties of our corporate overlords.

Cathi Herrod proves me right on Hobby Lobby decision

June 30, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

You’ll recall that after SB1062, the bill that would give business owners and individuals the “religious freedom” to discriminate, went down in flames due to intense public and business lobbyist pressure against it, I observed that it was very much an anti-choice bill in addition to an anti-LGBT one.

We really did dodge a bullet and at risk of sounding cynical, I’m glad the focus was on LGBT discrimination from a purely tactical standpoint in addition to the moral and human rights ones. Having it framed as targeting LGBT citizens was what brought the fiercely negative reaction in the media and the organized business community around to kill it. But make no mistake, this was also very much an anti-choice bill. CAP spokesman Aaron Baer cited Hobby Lobby in a TV interview as an example for why SB1062 was needed. Had contraception access been the main public focus – and I bet CAP wishes like hell it had – there’s a good chance the bill would have been quietly signed into law with nary a peep from the Chamber of Commerce crowd because sluts.