Are corporations guaranteed the same rights as individuals? The core of the lawsuit brought before the Supreme Court this past Tuesday is whether any corporation (in this case Hobby Lobby) is protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. The RFRA requires that the government prove "compelling interest" when someone's religious rights are "substantially burdened" by what the government wants it to do. Individuals and religious groups (like churches) are indeed covered by the RFRA, however, it hasn't been decided with certainty whether the RFRA's protections also extend to businesses or corporations.
Hobby Lobby is one of the 40 plus businesses that don't want to provide health insurance to their employees under the Affordable Care Act. Sure, they say they want to provide coverage but they don't want to provide the type of coverage mandated by the ACA. The ACA mandates that employers offer health insurance to employees that provide birth control without a co-pay. Birth control without insurance can cost up to $60 a month for the pill and even more for other methods such as the Nuva Ring. Longer term forms of contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (or IUD's), Implanons and Plan B are required to be offered without a co-pay as well.
Hobby Lobby claims that contraceptives, or more specifically IUD's and Plan B are against their religion. They want the Supreme Court to allow them to deny their employee's health insurance which covers these contraceptives because of their "freedom of religion." Hobby Lobby does not legally, have to offer their employees this coverage, instead they could pay a fine for not offering insurance at all or a fine for offering coverage without the contraceptive coverage. Hobby Lobby wants out of that too. Hobby Lobby wants to offer their employees insurance that does not cover anything that the religion of Hobby Lobby does not support. There are a couple things wrong with this picture. One, Hobby Lobby is a for profit corporation, the corporation has no religion- the family that owns Hobby Lobby has a religion. So if the Supreme Court rules on this case in favor of Hobby Lobby they will in fact be setting a precedent that corporations can have religions. This opens the door for any number of corporations to claim that the beliefs held by the owners (or board) should have the same protection as individuals.
First of all, the companies are not the ones that pay for the birth control; they pay for an insurance plan. The employees then use their insurance plan to cover their health care, which is none of the companies business. Furthermore, the companies argue that their own right to have their own beliefs are being violating when they are running a for profit business that cannot exist as its own entity. The owners of companies that make money off of customers are not allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices, sales procedures or other legal matters. Companies have to follow the law. This law requiring health insurance should be no different.
Even though Hobby Lobby and others contest that their freedom of religion is being violated, the freedom of the employees who want health insurance that covers all of their health care are being violated if they aren't given it. If contraceptives aren't against my religion- why does the employer get to deny me these prescriptions because of theirs? No one is being forced to take contraceptives and if Hobby Lobby doesn't want employees using contraceptives they really have no recourse because an employees health decisions are again, none of their business. You can't tell your employees what they can and can't do with their health care. The AFA gives women the status of full human beings that are not penalized simply for having a uterus.
But here is something that not everyone is aware of. Hobby Lobby is only contesting specific forms of contraceptives because they believe that they are actually abortion inducing drugs and not contraceptives.
Yup, the most mind boggling part of this entire situation is that the Obama administration has taken the "belief" held by Hobby Lobby and others seriously that Plan B and IUD's are abortifacients, even though scientifically, that is not correct. No one can bring up the fact that this is wrong. In deciding this case the very contraceptives that Hobby Lobby and others are fighting to be exempted from covering are misrepresented. Their beliefs, though entirely inaccurate are still to be considered beliefs, even though we know they are not correct.
Even the National Catholic Reporter states that "The reality is that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the IUD and Plan B work only as contraceptives." Also: "The most important point that emerges from all of this research is that, so far, there is no scientific evidence that any FDA-approved contraception is capable of destroying an embryo. To say that any of these drugs are abortifacient is not only misleading, it does a profound disservice to women who find themselves in a situation where they might have to use one of these drugs or devices (Article foundHERE)."
Whether or not Hobby Lobby should be allowed to have a religion and have protection from having to follow laws that "violate" that religion is not really what the Supreme Court is deciding. The Supreme Court is deciding if your business, which makes money, can in turn be an exception to laws. Yes, churches and other religious institutions are often afforded benefits not granted to the rest of us. Churches are exempt from taxes, churches have even been allowed exemptions for the birth control mandate (though that is an entirely different story). Hobby Lobby is not a church. Hobby Lobby may be a company founded on principles taken from religion but that does not mean Hobby Lobby can be categorized as a non-profit, religious organization that is granted those exemptions. No one is saying that Hobby Lobby cannot be founded on religious principles or that the owners cannot freely practice their own religion separate from their company. I've only briefly mentioned that a ruling from the Supreme Court allowing corporations to have the same religious freedoms as individuals would set a terrible precedent allowing all corporations to avoid following the law based on their "beliefs," considering the fact that the beliefs held by Hobby Lobby and others are not even true. That direction is the most dangerous for individuals who are employed by these corporations, not to mention society as a whole.
I am not against freedom of religion as long as practicing that religion doesn't involve preventing others from exercising their own religious or non-religious beliefs. Employees at every corporation should be allowed to make their own decisions based on their own beliefs, not the beliefs of those signing their pay checks or a board of trustees profiting from the corporation. Given that IUD's and Plan B are not even abortifacents to begin with, the fact that Hobby Lobby may be granted an exemption from following the law based on false "beliefs" rather than truth is frightening and an abomination to justice. So, Hobby Lobby and all the other corporations begging to be let off the hook based on religion- I have to quote one of the smartest women I know, my mother, who when asked about the requirement of businesses providing health insurance that covers all forms of contraceptives stated: "Obviously, it's just part of the cost of doing business."
Friday, March 28, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Why Men don't have Abortion Rights
Unplanned pregnancies are not rare in the United States. In fact, unplanned pregnancies account for about half of all pregnancies. Though sometimes this can be a welcome surprise for couples it is just as often not. In these cases ideally the women and man are on the same page about moving forward and continuing pregnancy or choosing to terminate. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. When women choose to continue their pregnancies the father has no say and is legally responsible in most instances (at least financially) for the child. If a women decides to terminate her pregnancy the father not only has no say, but he can also claim no right to have his wishes supersede hers. I understand that this may not seem fair to all men, I mean after all is said and done women have the option of terminating or continuing their pregnancies without even informing the biological father if she so chooses. That is reality.
Men do not bear children, not in this society and not in any other human society that I am aware of. We would live in a very different world if that they did.
There is a HUGE difference between fathers of existing children and potential fathers of potential children. If you are a father of an existing child then your rights are different from potential fathers who have no physically existing children. If you don't believe women should have abortion rights period, than we are at odds from the starting point. I'm moving on to the point of this post which is when all is said and done if a women is pregnant it is her decision alone that decides whether or not she continues or terminates her pregnancy.
Realistically the relationship between men and women are not always a simple one. Everyone is different and what works for some sexual partners may not work for others. Do you have the "what happens if pregnancy results from this instance of intercourse" conversation with each and every person you have ever slept with? Perhaps you do and in that case you are less likely to find yourselves at odds if an unplanned pregnancy occurs and that is a good thing. But I think the reality is that few of us have those conversations in advance and even if we do the circumstances can always change. Actually being pregnant is different than potentially being pregnant and women can't always know in advance what that will mean to her. So I admit that the only way to ensure that you never end up at odds with your sexual partner in terms of pregnancy is to abstain from having sex or practice the safest sex possible.
Women get to decide whether or not to continue or terminate a pregnancy because women are the ones who are physiologically affected by pregnancy. Making the vast assumption that men and women are created equal, women alone can be the only ones who choose whether or not to bear children. First of all, continuing a pregnancy has much higher risks on a woman's body than terminating that pregnancy. Before modern medicine and even with it women die in child birth, it can be very dangerous to have a baby. Men do not face that risk when having contributed biologically to the creation of a potential child. There are no physical side effects or dangers for men who have impregnated a women.
As explained in a recent article by Marcus Lee, men having abortion right's comes from the notion that fetuses are property jointly owned by men and women. This argument insinuates that if fetuses are physical property, it is unfair for a woman to have complete control over whether or not a potential piece of property can exist if she shares ownership with a man. There has been legislation aimed at making this way of thinking the law, for example the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” (PRENDA), would authorize civil actions for verifiable money damages for injuries and punitive damages by fathers and maternal grandmothers. This dangerous rhetoric aims to link the women and her uterus as property in which men exert rights over that of the actual woman.
Men's Rights Activists suggest that like the institution of slavery- men are powerless with the regard to impregnating women and therefore need state intervention in order to restore the power imbalance (Reality Check. No one can own a human being and certainly no one can own something that exists solely INSIDE of another human being. The very core idea behind justifying slavery was that black bodies could be owned, sold and traded like economic commodities. This notion in its entirety has to be discarded if human rights are to remain intact.
Men have overwhelmingly written and enacted the laws that effect women's bodies. Men have overwhelmingly caused abortion stigma to be perpetuated in society and it is men that can never claim that they will ever be pregnant. Just as biological reasoning exists for men to claim inherent physical and mental superiority over women, we can take that same biological reasoning and say that until a child is BORN, the fact that men provided one part of the equation that can bring about a child is not reason enough for them to claim ownership over the women who's body is housing that potential child. There can be no such thing as father's rights until there is a child born. Their part in human reproduction ends long before any physical entity exists and if women are to be equal autonomous human beings that is the way it must stay. That is reality.
Men do not bear children, not in this society and not in any other human society that I am aware of. We would live in a very different world if that they did.
There is a HUGE difference between fathers of existing children and potential fathers of potential children. If you are a father of an existing child then your rights are different from potential fathers who have no physically existing children. If you don't believe women should have abortion rights period, than we are at odds from the starting point. I'm moving on to the point of this post which is when all is said and done if a women is pregnant it is her decision alone that decides whether or not she continues or terminates her pregnancy.
Realistically the relationship between men and women are not always a simple one. Everyone is different and what works for some sexual partners may not work for others. Do you have the "what happens if pregnancy results from this instance of intercourse" conversation with each and every person you have ever slept with? Perhaps you do and in that case you are less likely to find yourselves at odds if an unplanned pregnancy occurs and that is a good thing. But I think the reality is that few of us have those conversations in advance and even if we do the circumstances can always change. Actually being pregnant is different than potentially being pregnant and women can't always know in advance what that will mean to her. So I admit that the only way to ensure that you never end up at odds with your sexual partner in terms of pregnancy is to abstain from having sex or practice the safest sex possible.
Women get to decide whether or not to continue or terminate a pregnancy because women are the ones who are physiologically affected by pregnancy. Making the vast assumption that men and women are created equal, women alone can be the only ones who choose whether or not to bear children. First of all, continuing a pregnancy has much higher risks on a woman's body than terminating that pregnancy. Before modern medicine and even with it women die in child birth, it can be very dangerous to have a baby. Men do not face that risk when having contributed biologically to the creation of a potential child. There are no physical side effects or dangers for men who have impregnated a women.
As explained in a recent article by Marcus Lee, men having abortion right's comes from the notion that fetuses are property jointly owned by men and women. This argument insinuates that if fetuses are physical property, it is unfair for a woman to have complete control over whether or not a potential piece of property can exist if she shares ownership with a man. There has been legislation aimed at making this way of thinking the law, for example the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” (PRENDA), would authorize civil actions for verifiable money damages for injuries and punitive damages by fathers and maternal grandmothers. This dangerous rhetoric aims to link the women and her uterus as property in which men exert rights over that of the actual woman.
Men's Rights Activists suggest that like the institution of slavery- men are powerless with the regard to impregnating women and therefore need state intervention in order to restore the power imbalance (Reality Check. No one can own a human being and certainly no one can own something that exists solely INSIDE of another human being. The very core idea behind justifying slavery was that black bodies could be owned, sold and traded like economic commodities. This notion in its entirety has to be discarded if human rights are to remain intact.
Men have overwhelmingly written and enacted the laws that effect women's bodies. Men have overwhelmingly caused abortion stigma to be perpetuated in society and it is men that can never claim that they will ever be pregnant. Just as biological reasoning exists for men to claim inherent physical and mental superiority over women, we can take that same biological reasoning and say that until a child is BORN, the fact that men provided one part of the equation that can bring about a child is not reason enough for them to claim ownership over the women who's body is housing that potential child. There can be no such thing as father's rights until there is a child born. Their part in human reproduction ends long before any physical entity exists and if women are to be equal autonomous human beings that is the way it must stay. That is reality.
Monday, March 10, 2014
National Appreciation Day for Abortion Providers
It's true. Today is National Appreciation Day for Abortion Providers.
It's impossible to ignore the rhetoric from the anti-choice today on why having this appreciation day offends their value of "life", however; this particular day, March 10th, was chosen because in 1993 a "pro-life" activist gunned down and killed abortion provider David Gunn.
As long as there are providers there will be safe abortions.
Thank you to every abortion provider who holds the life of the patient in the highest regard.
Our lives first. Always.
It's impossible to ignore the rhetoric from the anti-choice today on why having this appreciation day offends their value of "life", however; this particular day, March 10th, was chosen because in 1993 a "pro-life" activist gunned down and killed abortion provider David Gunn.
As long as there are providers there will be safe abortions.
Thank you to every abortion provider who holds the life of the patient in the highest regard.
Our lives first. Always.
Pre-emptive Striking (The Law on Abortions in America)
Abortion is still legal in the United States. For now.
It's become more and more popular for legislation to be passed by states "banning" abortions after 20 weeks. The root of these bills are largely due to the question of when a fetus begins to feel pain. I recently read a terrible story about a women who began miscarrying a very much wanted pregnancy at 22-weeks in 2010 in Nebraska. A 20-week ban on abortions had recently passed in the state and when the women found out that there was not enough amniotic fluid to ensure that her fetus could live outside of the womb, her and her husband decided they wanted to induce the labor and put an end to the tragedy. Unfortunately, the doctors along with their legal counsel could not comply with the families wishes because of the potential prosecution that could be brought by the state of Nebraska. The women sat there for 10-days (not being deemed "ill enough" to meet any abortion ban exceptions for saving her life) before natural labor began. Upon physically entering the world, after several "gasps for air," their child died. Click here for the entire story.
Bans may be the extreme and abortions after 20-weeks make up less than 2% of procedures performed but that does not mean that they are not to be taken as a warning to us all that any attack on a women's right to choose the fate of her own body can lead to re-criminalizing abortion. As it stands now there are hospitals that have had to risk women's lives in order to protect themselves from prosecution. In the case of Savita Halappanavar, the women who died after Irish Hospital Doctors refused to remove the dying fetus within her while it had a heartbeat- paid with her life.
When talking about abortion legislation there can be some disconnect between laws that push for out right bans and laws that effect access to abortion services on a more subtle level. For instance, mandatory waiting periods (24-72 hour periods after initial appointments that force women to wait for their procedure to be done) are not directly aimed at banning women from services however, they make the process much more difficult. Also, mandatory ultrasound viewing or description laws (when the women is forced to either view or listen to the description of her ultrasound before being allowed to proceed)do not ban abortion but they make the process that much more oppressive and intrusive. Often you hear anti choice lawmakers and activist claim that these laws "protect" women or make abortions "safer" but in truth the goal behind these types of bills and laws are to erode the abortion rights on American women. The federal law states that States may not pass laws causing undue burdens on women who seek legal termination but what constitutes as an "undue burden" is subjective at best.
The point I'm trying to make goes back to the way that Roe v. Wade was decided and subsequent Judgements made by the Supreme Court since. Initially, Roe was decided on the:
"right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the district court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
The ruling allows for legal abortions during the entire pregnancy, but set up conditions to allow states to regulate abortion during the second and third trimesters.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) a Pennsylvania law that required spousal awareness prior to obtaining an abortion was ruled invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it created an undue burden on married women seeking an abortion. Other requirements for parental consent, informed consent, and 24-hour waiting period were constitutionally valid regulations ruled that certain restrictions on abortion access, like waiting periods, were constitutional.
So when anti-choice activists couldn't overturn outright Roe or ban legal abortions the strategy shifted to make obtaining an abortion so difficult that in effect there would be women who sought but could not obtain a legal abortion. Therefore the clause of "undue" burden becomes a week defense against attacks on how far restrictions can be taken.
So called Partial Birth abortions were banned in the early 2000's but that is far too complicated to explain in this post. The Wikipedia Article can give you a better idea about the laws regarding second and third trimester procedures and what they mean for abortion patients and providers.
Restrictions lead to bans. Too often do women find themselves speaking out after the fact. So on one level the detachment of individuals in the political process can provide us with powerful wake up call if and when we become effected directly by the lack of abortion rights but on a deeper level we need to raise the alarm earlier and for everyone.
The level of involvement needs to be severe at the front gate. Any attack on any aspects of the legality of abortion must be met with opposition. The decision to have an abortion needs to be in the hands of each individual women, each and every instance of pregnancy and once that decision is made no one has the right to delay, demoralize or discriminate against that women or that choice. Period.
It's become more and more popular for legislation to be passed by states "banning" abortions after 20 weeks. The root of these bills are largely due to the question of when a fetus begins to feel pain. I recently read a terrible story about a women who began miscarrying a very much wanted pregnancy at 22-weeks in 2010 in Nebraska. A 20-week ban on abortions had recently passed in the state and when the women found out that there was not enough amniotic fluid to ensure that her fetus could live outside of the womb, her and her husband decided they wanted to induce the labor and put an end to the tragedy. Unfortunately, the doctors along with their legal counsel could not comply with the families wishes because of the potential prosecution that could be brought by the state of Nebraska. The women sat there for 10-days (not being deemed "ill enough" to meet any abortion ban exceptions for saving her life) before natural labor began. Upon physically entering the world, after several "gasps for air," their child died. Click here for the entire story.
Bans may be the extreme and abortions after 20-weeks make up less than 2% of procedures performed but that does not mean that they are not to be taken as a warning to us all that any attack on a women's right to choose the fate of her own body can lead to re-criminalizing abortion. As it stands now there are hospitals that have had to risk women's lives in order to protect themselves from prosecution. In the case of Savita Halappanavar, the women who died after Irish Hospital Doctors refused to remove the dying fetus within her while it had a heartbeat- paid with her life.
When talking about abortion legislation there can be some disconnect between laws that push for out right bans and laws that effect access to abortion services on a more subtle level. For instance, mandatory waiting periods (24-72 hour periods after initial appointments that force women to wait for their procedure to be done) are not directly aimed at banning women from services however, they make the process much more difficult. Also, mandatory ultrasound viewing or description laws (when the women is forced to either view or listen to the description of her ultrasound before being allowed to proceed)do not ban abortion but they make the process that much more oppressive and intrusive. Often you hear anti choice lawmakers and activist claim that these laws "protect" women or make abortions "safer" but in truth the goal behind these types of bills and laws are to erode the abortion rights on American women. The federal law states that States may not pass laws causing undue burdens on women who seek legal termination but what constitutes as an "undue burden" is subjective at best.
The point I'm trying to make goes back to the way that Roe v. Wade was decided and subsequent Judgements made by the Supreme Court since. Initially, Roe was decided on the:
"right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the district court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
The ruling allows for legal abortions during the entire pregnancy, but set up conditions to allow states to regulate abortion during the second and third trimesters.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) a Pennsylvania law that required spousal awareness prior to obtaining an abortion was ruled invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it created an undue burden on married women seeking an abortion. Other requirements for parental consent, informed consent, and 24-hour waiting period were constitutionally valid regulations ruled that certain restrictions on abortion access, like waiting periods, were constitutional.
So when anti-choice activists couldn't overturn outright Roe or ban legal abortions the strategy shifted to make obtaining an abortion so difficult that in effect there would be women who sought but could not obtain a legal abortion. Therefore the clause of "undue" burden becomes a week defense against attacks on how far restrictions can be taken.
So called Partial Birth abortions were banned in the early 2000's but that is far too complicated to explain in this post. The Wikipedia Article can give you a better idea about the laws regarding second and third trimester procedures and what they mean for abortion patients and providers.
Restrictions lead to bans. Too often do women find themselves speaking out after the fact. So on one level the detachment of individuals in the political process can provide us with powerful wake up call if and when we become effected directly by the lack of abortion rights but on a deeper level we need to raise the alarm earlier and for everyone.
The level of involvement needs to be severe at the front gate. Any attack on any aspects of the legality of abortion must be met with opposition. The decision to have an abortion needs to be in the hands of each individual women, each and every instance of pregnancy and once that decision is made no one has the right to delay, demoralize or discriminate against that women or that choice. Period.
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