(This is a parallel post that goes along with: The Scariness of Religious Power in the Hobby Lobby Abortion Case)
We all have fears of the government ruling over us as dictators, do we not? We see dictators and communist systems of our past and present, along with sci-fi movies and thriller novels based around these sorts of power-abusing, censorship-laden regimes, and cringe at the notion of a government removing our freedom rather than existing for it.
There’s plenty to be scared about in the recent Hobby Lobby abortion/contraceptive case when it comes to the abuse of power, both governmental and religious (which is what my parallel post is about).
The recent Hobby Lobby court ruling surrounding contraception, abortion and mandated health care presents another murky situation where we as a society are trying to determine the boundaries of governmental authority, religious freedom and personal conviction.
I just read an article by Richard Wolf in today’s USA Today which helped catch me up to speed on the story. An abbreviated version of the print article can be found here.
The article draws the battle lines quickly and clearly in the first sentence: The Supreme Court put religious freedom above reproductive rights Monday…
Is abortion a reproductive right?
All throughout the article, and throughout this greater dialogue, this debate is called a debate over “contraceptives.” The dictionary definition of a contraceptive states that it is (of a method or device) serving to prevent pregnancy. Once someone is already pregnant, say the morning after they have sex, should the term “contraceptive” still be used, or should a different term be used instead?
Reading Wolf’s article and listening to the social media noise around this story reminded me a lot of the February 2014 news buzz around the Arizona court’s ruling of what was called the “Anti-Gay” Bill SB1062. In a blog post I did on that story, I tried to point out the scary part of both sides of the argument, as well as how finding a third view between the two polarizing extremes would benefit everyone moving forward.
I find the same to be true in the Hobby Lobby case. What I find amazingly similar about both of these debates is the black and white nature of them. You are told by the other side what you are and what you aren’t and you’re either for us or against us. This seems to be the popular strategy of the day when it comes to arguing for a controversial issue: Take something that everyone agrees on, then glue your highly-debated issue with the universally agreed upon on issue, then proclaim to everyone how they are exactly the same.
The gay rights movement did this by saying “Gay is the New Black”, equating gay rights with those of the African American Civil Rights movement. We universally agree that what happened to blacks in American history was egregiously wrong. So it’s a highly effective debate strategy by the gay rights movement to convince people that their plight is the same as the one we already find egregiously wrong. There has definitely been oppression in both cases, but to call them the same is diminishing and disrespectful to the uniqueness of both people groups. They are two very different histories with a slew of different very significant variables so we need to treat them as such. Clumping them together is lazy and unfair.
It’s interesting to see the same strategy being used in the Hobby Lobby case.
The liberal side of this debate is making their point that women have the right to contraceptives and that businesses cannot deprive them of such. Excluding a small minority, the vast majority of Christians would wholeheartedly agree with this statement, as would pretty much all of American society as a whole.
But is that really what Hobby Lobby is making a fuss over?
No, of course not, but isn’t it convenient to make it sound like it is?
Hobby Lobby’s objection is that in their mind, the government is forcing them to pay for abortions.
With abortion being a very separate thing from contraceptives which prevent pregnancy from ever happening.
Think about that for a second. Even if you’re pro-choice, think about that statement.
It’s one thing to make something legal and give people the freedom to choose it for themselves, it’s entirely another to force someone to pay for something they think is morally wrong, that ~50% of our country also thinks is morally wrong.
Essentially, the government is telling business owners: You are no longer allowed to decide your morals for yourself, we will define them for you, and if you choose to disobey us, we will fine the hell out of you ($475 million annually in Hobby Lobby’s case). And I wonder what the government would do if Hobby Lobby refused to pay those fines!
If that doesn’t scare you, it should!
Even if you’re pro-choice and you strongly disagree with me on the topic of abortion, try to see past the topic in question to see the bigger principle trying to be laid out by our government…
“President Obama believes that women should make personal health care decisions for themselves, rather than their bosses deciding for them,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. He did not rule out Obama using his own authority to address the contraception ruling.
Again, we have taken “abortion” and added it to”personal health care decisions.” As if bosses were telling women what brand of toothpaste to use or which Pharmacy to shop at. Abortion and toothpaste are not the same thing! It is lazy and unfair to clump them together.
Deal with abortion on its own. It is a big enough beast to get plenty of attention all by itself, without the liberal side having to tuck it behind softer and more palatable issues in an effort to sneak it by without anyone seeing it. Put abortion on its own two feet and duke it out in the political spheres allotted to us in a democracy. Anything besides that is inauthentic, ineffective, and sets the precedence for a lot of future problems.
You realize that many Christians will go to jail before paying for someone to have an abortion? That’s going to look great in the media and for our country’s unity.
If the government can force business owners to provide abortions for their employees, what else will they be able to force them to do? Get GPS microchips implanted in them?
What I’m saying is that abortion is such a polarizing issue in our political world, it needs to be given the respect it deserves. Providing health care for those who don’t have it is a noble concept, but be smart about it. Realize that foundational health care and abortions cannot and should not be clumped together as if you can’t have former without the latter. If you try to do this, you’re asking for a fight. The executives at Hobby Lobby have given you the exact fight you were looking for, and according to the Supreme Court, you lost.
It really doesn’t need to be this way.
But sadly our obsession with the “you’re either for us or against us” mentality of polarizing has gotten us here once again.
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i feel this was a poliitcal play masked behind religion bc if they are so against it then are the majority of the products sold in the stores from a country that encourages and sometimes forces abortion? also isnt Hobby Lobby heavily invested in birth control…..
some forms of birth control actually help women who are suffering from other ailments…. i dunno seems to me like SCOTUS should have just minded their own business
conspiracy theory! I really don’t know the answers to those questions Bear 🙁 –I do know that birth control definitely helps women suffering from other ailments, but again, the morning-after pill would not be one of those.
There is actually a deeper problem that many seem to be missing. Although the Supreme Court said Hobby Lobby does not have to provide coverage of certain birth control medication that can potentially cause abortions, Alito noted in his opinion that there is nothing stopping the government from stepping in and filling the gap where employers (like Hobby Lobby) refuse on religious grounds. Thus, although Hobby Lobby is not directly providing the coverage, it is shifting the burden onto taxpayers (which itself is one).
Just something to keep in mind.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/07/01/the-supreme-courts-hobby-lobby-decision-didnt-overturn-a-single-word-of-obamacare/
Ya that’s a good point Scott. The print article covered that as well, which is definitely interesting. Hobby Lobby has a clean conscience, but the services are still provided. Sort of contradicts the idea of Obamacare I guess (something I’m definitely not an expert in) where employers are supposed to provide healthcare. Seems like an employer could just exempt out of all of it, then would the govt pick up the entire tab? All in all though, if Obama/Obamacare hadn’t decided that the morning-after pill was included in the mandated requirements for employers to provide, they could have avoided this entire firestorm. To me, that does not seem like an essential health care need. If you have those ahead of time, it means you are planning to have sex. So if you’re planning on having sex, why not simply use a non-abortive birth control? If you weren’t planning to have sex, like in the case of rape, then that would be emergency enough where you would just go out and purchase the morning-after pill once without your employer needing to be involved. Just brainstorming potential solutions to this.
Basically, what I took from this is that you believe that Hobby Lobby shouldn’t object to having to cover the four drugs on a religious basis, but on a moral basis. Interesting perspective…but I still have some issues with it.
So the Hobby Lobby owners object to having to provide insurance plans covering IUDs and the “morning-after pills” Plan B and Ella, 4 contraceptives out of 20 that businesses were required to cover under the HHS mandate, because when a woman uses them, they take effect after conception has happened and a fertilized egg is in existence. They thin the uterine wall, which somehow prevents the egg from implanting in the uterus (considered by most experts to be the beginning of pregnancy), and the egg gets flushed out of the woman’s system when she has her next period. Since conception has already happened, the HL owners and those who agree with them consider the fertilized egg a human life, and therefore the ridding of it in this manner to be an early abortion.
However, there is actually a lot of debate about how often that happens as a result of the drugs, the prevention of an existing fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Also, a certain faction of Baptists and Catholics, who have a very prominent voice in the pro-life movement, believe that all hormonal contraceptives do the same thing, and object to all 20 contraceptives mandated by Obamacare. From what I’ve read, there seems to be agreement that some or all of the 20 contraceptives CAN intercept the egg before it implants, the real debate is over how often that happens, which varies depending on the drug. The “purist” view is countered with the argument that most of the time, the contraceptives prevent conception from happening altogether. One article I read cited a study which found that the failing of a fertilized egg to implant in the uterus was more likely to happen on its own than as a result of the use of hormonal contraception.
But even if those contraceptives DID frequently intercept fertilized eggs before implantation, it’s worth asking yourself: is it really worth going out of one’s way to protect a fertilized egg, which is likely to be flushed of a woman’s system anyway? And, more to the real issue: can businesses refuse to cover certain drugs because they don’t want to contribute to the killing of a fertilized egg? You argued against the “religious objection” argument toted by HL in your parallel post, and I agree, but the “moral objection” might present similar issues. Looking back on the Supreme Court’s ruling, I find it laughable how painfully bad this ruling was; Hobby Lobby’s argument was basically that they objected to having to cover these drugs because they had a “religious objection” to them, and the Supreme Court basically deemed that a sufficient enough argument, which sets a very dangerous precedent, as you talked about.
Mandating that large corporations like Hobby Lobby provide insurance coverage for their employees is hugely important because so many employees can’t afford to pay for coverage, co-payments, and other fees out of pocket. In my opinion, when it comes to major corporations like Hobby Lobby who have a lot of money and power, and don’t make Christian faith a requirement for employment, there shouldn’t be a lot of wiggle room for “religious exemptions” when it comes to insurance coverage for employees’ personal health care decisions, that is if we are going to require companies to provide coverage. I might not feel the way I do if these 20 contraceptives weren’t used by women for nonsexual purposes, such as managing periods or reproductive health disorders. They don’t use the drugs in any way that could supposedly be potentially taking a human life, so to me, refusing to cover those drugs is saying to the women who need them, “We’re not going to pay for you to have access to the health care choices that work for you because other women use them in ways we personally find objectionable.”
I’ve heard about alternatives like allowing Hobby Lobby to sign off coverage of the methods they find objectionable to a third party insurance provider, or something of that nature. If they can find a way to make something like that work, I wouldn’t object to it. I just think that it’s unfair that women who legitimately need birth control for health reasons have their access to it impeded because of their boss’s personal objections to a particular way it’s used. Pardon my long post, just thought I’d give you my two cents…though it turned out to be a lot more!