SCOTUS says not all religions are equal

By Frank Moraes

Last week, with the unanimous decisions, I thought, "Oh God! That was probably done to make the coming highly controversial 5-4 decisions more acceptable." That looks like it is the case. I assume that it is John Roberts who decides when decisions are released. And it should dispel any idea that you may have that the Supreme Court is anything but an extremely political organization. The most upsetting decisions today was Burwell v Hobby Lobby.

In it, by a 5-4 majority, the Court found that "closely held" companies that are owned by religious people have a right to not provide birth control as part of their employee healthcare coverage.

If you look at the logic of the case, this really should be applied to everything. The Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions. By the logic of this decision, a Jehovah's Witnesses employer ought to be able to withhold blood transfusions from the insurance coverage offered to their employees. But that's not what this decision (pdf) finds. Alito's decision even says, "This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, eg, for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs." In Kennedy's concurrence, he begins, "At the outset it should be said that the Court's opinion does not have the breadth and sweep ascribed to it by the respectful and powerful dissent."

The question is, "Why?" There really is no reason. What seems to have been done is that the Supreme Court wanted to allow Christian conservatives to make their stand against birth control and so they worked back from that. It reminds me above all of Bush v Gore. In that case, the Court found that George W Bush's due process rights were being violated, but it was only George W Bush's rights who were being violated and if a similar case ever came up, Bush v Gore could not be used as a precedent. Just like in that case, in Burwell v Hobby Lobby, the Court majority is doing what can only be call judicial legislation. It just created a law that more or less says, "Closely held religious companies have the right to discriminate against their female employees with regard to the existing law that says that all insurance policies must include contraceptive coverage." This is not "judging"; this is not calling balls and strikes; this is legislating, pure and simple.

The conservatives on the bench are not idiots. They know that they can't just say, "If an employer is religious, he doesn't have to follow any law that goes against his conscience." That would allow religions they don't like to gain more power. Rastafarian employers might claim that all of their employees ingest cannabis. But even those Jehovah's Witnesses: they can't be allowed to sully the important legislative work being done by the conservative Christians on the Court: creating a special theocracy for their religion and their religion alone.

Ginsburg's dissent is kind of amazing. Alito spent most of his decision arguing that the finding was minor. He said it wasn't a broad decision. Kennedy backed him up. They were using a scalpel, for God's sake! She brooks no such fantasy. Ginsburg goes right at the blood transfusion issue. She notes that this case doesn't apply to blood transfusions and other silly religious complaints against modernity, but that it also doesn't rule them out. The courts, apparently, are just supposed to deal with them as they come up. The majority decision certainly makes a Jehovah's Witnesses employer's contention that he shouldn't have to provide coverage for blood transfusions reasonable, even if it doesn't state that such exceptions should be made.

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More attacks on Obamacare

By Frank Moraes

The fucktards at Liberty University are trying another attack on the Affordable Care Act (ACA / Obamacare). Actually, this is an old case, but it is now going forward. The college has two problems with the healthcare reform law: employer mandate and birth control coverage. This is a scattershot approach to destroying legislation that they don't like. But let's look at this a little more closely.

Liberty University is the pretend college founded by Jerry Falwell in 1971. It was originally called "Lynchburg Baptist College" and slowly migrated to its current name. And that name is telling. Modern American Christianity has little to do with Christ and lots to do with conservative politics. Consider, for example, Patrick Henry College -- you know, "Give me liberty or give me death"? These groups are big on the sort of liberty they think people wanted in the late 18th century: the liberty to force everyone to do as they say.

Kill the Pill

The attack on the birth control mandate in the ACA doesn't make any sense. No employer will be paying for this. But it is the part of the law that is likely to get the most interests from Scalia and Alito. I have long said that if the right ever managed to outlaw abortion, they would next work on banning birth control. This is obvious now. As the conversion about abortion moves to whether rape victims ought to be allowed one, those on the leading edges of "liberty" are already calling for birth control bans.

The official line from Baptists is that they think birth control is fine as long as it prevents conception. Thus, they're against using hormonal birth control: the pill. The problem here is that the pill works in two ways: it stops the egg from becoming fertilized and if it does get fertilized, it makes it harder for the egg to get implanted in the womb. There is no killing of fertilized eggs here. Basically, the pill works the way that condoms do. Having a problem with one but not the other shows a shocking lack of understanding of how the pill works.

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Joe Walsh is a misogynistic asshole

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know Joe Walsh, right? No, not the guitarist. Not that one.

I'm talking about the right-wing Republican congressman from Illinois who in July said his challenger, Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War vet, wasn't a "true hero," and who in August said the political winds were going to "pick this president up and pat him on the head and say, son, son, son, Mr. President, you were never ready to be president, now go home and work for somebody and find out how the real world works," disrespectful and racially inflammatory rhetoric, to be sure.

And those are just two examples.

Well, he's at it again, as ugly as ever, this time going after Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student whom Dear Leader Rush called a "slut," among other horrible things, simply because she argued that contraception (that she needs for health reasons) should be covered by insurance: 

At a campaign stop Saturday in Addison, IL, Walsh, who faces a tough reelection battle, went on a self-described rant about Fluke, attacking her support for contraception coverage and telling the law student to "get a job."

"So at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night their first prime time speaker was Sandra Fluke, whatever her name is," Walsh said. "Think about this, a 31-32 year old law student who has been a student for life, who gets up there in front of a national audience and tells the American people, 'I want America to pay for my contraceptives.' You're kidding me. Go get a job. Go get a job Sandra Fluke."

"This a woman who feels entitled that we all should pay for her contraceptives," he said. "This is what we are teaching Americans? That was embarrassing. That was embarrassing."

Um, no. Fluke is a law student at a prestigious school. She's getting an education. She doesn't need to get a job right now. 

Furthermore, it's not like Fluke, along with so many others, wants the government to subsidize some sort of depraved lifestyle (if you think that sort of thing is depraved). Many women need contraception (the pill, specifically) for serious health reasons. More than that, though, women want to be in control of their own bodies, to be able to make choices about their health, not to have a bunch of misogynistic men tell them what they can and cannot do. And what's more, if you want to reduce the number of abortions that are performed in the U.S., which is what almost all of us who are pro-choice want, the best way to do that is to make contraception widely available and accessible, and specifically to those who lack the resources to purchase it.

What Fluke said wasn't meant to be solely about Sandra Fluke. It was meant to be about all women -- and that's exactly the case Fluke made at the Democratic convention a few days ago. Maybe Fluke can afford contraception, maybe she can't. But what about the millions of women who can't?

Not that Walsh cares. This is a guy who didn't pay child support -- to the tune of more than $100,000. He disrespects education and obviously disrespects women. Actually, that's an understatment. It would seem he's a vindictive misogynist who thinks women should just shut the fuck up and do what they're told, much like what he thinks America's black president should do.

We all know Republicans are waging a war on women. With Walsh, it's personal.

Rick Santorum thinks we should all stop using contraception

By Richard K. Barry

Just when you think GOP presidential nomination candidates can't say anything dumber, they raise the bar. Yes, ThinkProgress has a clip of Rick Santorum being interviewed in which he says that he would repeal all federal funding for contraception. He goes on to say that birth control devalues the act of procreation. Here's the quote:

One of the things I will talk about, that no president has ever talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.

Well, Santorum is half right, which is probably better than his average. Contraception is a license to do things - fun things. I suspect, however, that if he were to conduct a poll even amongst solid conservatives, he would find that most people who do things in the "sexual realm" with the benefit of contraception probably don't think what they are doing is counter to how things are supposed to be. Just a guess.

As he continues:

[Sex] is supposed to be within a marriage. It's supposed to be for the purposes that are yes, conjugal.. but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. This is special and it needs to be seen as special.

I'd like to recommend that a question be asked of GOP presidential candidates at their next debate. I propose that each be asked if they think that contraception is "not okay." I think they should be made to answer whether or not they think everyone should be made, or at least encouraged, to stop using contraception. Simple up or down answer.

I'd love to hear the responses.

I think it's worth quoting the ThinkProgress piece at length on the benefits of contraception:

An overwhelming majority of Americans - virtually all women (more than 99 percent) aged 15-44 have used at least one contraceptive method - rely on contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that contraceptive services provided at publicly funded clinics helped prevent almost two million unintended pregnancies. Without funding from Medicaid and Title X "abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens; the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double."

I know that Rick Santorum is a radical Christian nutjob. I get that. It just amazes me that the other GOP hopefuls feel the need to tip toe around this kind of bullshit for fear of alienating social conservatives.

So much of Republican politics these days is about finding the lowest common denominator. It's about not sticking out in a way that might alienate the vocal minority on the radical right. Where does that leave them? No tax increases under any circumstances, draconian immigration laws, real enthusiasm for capital punishment, gay bashing (even for our gay soliders), climate change denying, even some evolution denying, and, now, the rejection of contraception.

What a bunch of yahoos. The more they talk, the more I like Obama's chances.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The Bush administration is its own expert on reproduction, economy

By LindaBeth

According to its report released Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to change the definition of "abortion" used to determine which services can be provided or referred at a facility receiving federal funds. As RH Reality Check reports, there are two commonly used understandings of when a pregnancy begins: conception (fertilization of the egg by the sperm) and implantation (of the fertilized egg into the uterine lining).

The report states:

A 2001 Zogby International American Values poll revealed that 49% of Americans believe that human life begins at conception [...] Both definitions of pregnancy inform medical practice. Some medical authorities, like the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association, have defined the term "established pregnancy" as occurring after implantation. Other medical authorities present different definitions. Stedman's Medical Dictionary, for example, defines pregnancy as "[t]he state of a female after conception and until the termination of the gestation."

The HHS report is suggesting that the definition of pregnancy be changed from the definition established by the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to one defined by... I'm not quite sure. RH Reality Check suggests that this change is being determined by polling data, but unless some of the sample said they didn't know, or they have some creative ideas about when pregnancy begins, 49% is not a majority. In any case, HHS is proposing that we change the definition of pregnancy from what has been established by medical bodies of experts to another definition established by...the Bush administration.

This new definition is highly problematic. Pregnancy would now be defined as occurring upon fertilization, and with no test for fertilization, women who utilize federally-funded health facilities can be turned away for contraceptive services on a whim. And as feministing notes, the women who will be the most affected are low-income and uninsured women. Not to mention that claims that certain contraceptives prevent implantation after fertilization are scientifically unproven. From RH Reality Check:

There is no scientific evidence that hormonal methods of birth control can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. This argument is the basis upon which the religious right hopes to include the 40% of the birth control methods Americans use, such as the pill, the patch, the shot, the ring, the IUD, and emergency contraception, under the classification "abortion."

What happens then is that the decision of whether or not something counts as an abortifacient is up to the individual...doctor or nurse (of course it's not up to the individual woman!). And since the proposal also includes mandating that doctors and nurses who are "conscientious objectors" not be "discriminated" against in hiring practices by facilities receiving federal funds, we have a recipe for disaster for women's reproductive rights.

So we have an HHS report that refutes the definition of pregnancy made by medical experts, uses unscientifically proven claims about how contraception functions vis-a-vis fertilization and implantation in order to redefine the contraceptive methods that 40% of women use as abortifacients, and enables federally-funded medical facilities to deny the most economically vulnerable women basic contraceptive services. And this from the "family values" administration who seems to loathe single women receiving social welfare, considering their perspective on the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program .

This also comes from our President who chastises reporters for using the term "recession" in discussing the state of our economy, since reporters aren't economic "experts." As we see here, what the experts say doesn't mean all that much to Bush when it comes to reproductive rights and pandering to the religious right's agenda.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)