Lots and lots of talk about the Hobby Lobby case. Lots of outrage. But all the case says is that small family owned businesses whose owners object to four (out of twenty) contraception drugs as abortion drugs don't have to pay for them on the company health plan. Employees can pay for them out of pocket, or, find another company to work for.
Is this that big a deal? What does everyone think? The TV newsies are really talking this one up.
3 comments:
Points (Numbered for your convenience!):
1. Mifepristone/RU 486, which *is* an abortifacient drug, is not, and has never been, required to be included in ACA-compliant healthcare plans. RU 486 is under attack from the religious fanatics from another angle, usually in the form of so-called TRAP laws, which often include clauses outlawing "tele-medicine" for the use of RU 486, so a woman must actually travel to a clinic and receive the drug (which is often administered in two doses days apart) in the presence of a doctor, something that is medically unnecessary and designed to be yet another huge inconvenience to women seeking to control their own reproduction. It is not related to the Hobby Lobby case.
2. Plan B & Ella, two of the four forms of birth control the Hobby Lobby brain trust object to, do NOT end a pregnancy nor do they prevent an already fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall. Plan B is a larger dose of the same thing that is provided in conventional hormonal birth control, a spike of hormones that prevent ovulation. Ella works the opposite way, blocking the hormones your body (my body, actually) releases to stimulate ovulation. Either way, both work by preventing an egg from being released to be fertilized by available sperm. They are not abortifacient drugs and there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that they cause a medical abortion rather than preventing a pregnancy, which as we all should understand from basic human biology are *not the same thing.*
3. Inter-Uterine Devices (IUDs), despite their bad reputation in the US as a result of the horrific failures of the Dalcon Sheild devices in the '70s, are one of the least invasive and most reliable forms of birth control. They work in several ways; copper IUDs prevent fertilization from occurring by making the uterus an inhospitable place for sperm. Religious fanatics, relying on incorrect or fabricated information, claim that IUDs can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. IUDs of this type can be used as emergency contraception because they will prevent fertilization if implanted within days of intercourse. This is not an abortion.
4. Many women cannot use hormonal birth control (HBC), because, like all drugs, HBC has side effects, and those can be dangerous and even fatal for some women. Therefore, for these women condoms are one option for birth control, but if the condom fails, Plan B or ella or an IUD are the back-ups. Many women who can't use HBC or have crippling or unpleasant side-effects while using it prefer an IUD as primary birth control.
Most Important:
5. Birth Control Is Medical Care. Pregnancy is complicated and dangerous and results in permanent physical changes, and no woman should have to risk going thru it unless she wants to. Birth Control treats many other issues and health conditions, aside from preventing pregnancy: endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) are just two of the most common conditions that birth control, and only birth control, can treat. IUDs can also be required to treat menstrual irregularities. In many cases, birth control helps to preserve a woman's fertility until she is ready to have children, and without this treatment she would eventually become infertile.
(cont'd)
Thus ends the education, on to MY opinion:
6. A corporation is not a person and cannot, definitionally, have "beliefs", religious or otherwise. I don't care what SCOTUS pretends to think on this issue, they are wrong.
7. A "deeply held" belief doesn't give you the right to dictate how other people spend their compensation or what their healthcare needs are. The SCOTUS opinion states that the tender consciences of the Hobby Lobby family regarding shit that is flat-out made up are more important than the real medical needs of the women who work for them. And the ruling applies, not to these four forms of birth control objected to, but to ALL BIRTH CONTROL and "closely held" companies (50% or more of ownership controlled by 5 people or less) employ half of all American workers.
8. This case just all the more clearly lays out the case for single-payer healthcare. No employer should *ever* have the right deny an employee necessary medical care based on a religious belief.
9. If you don't think that recognizing one "belief" of one corporation (technically two, since the case was combined) will lead to all sorts of bullshit and bigotry being enshrined as "deeply held beliefs" and used as a justification for further discrimination against anyone the owner objects to, I direct you to all the headlines this morning of business owners suing for the right to do just that. This is one slippery slope that looks a lot more like a cliff straight down. The Roberts Court clearly has no respect for civil rights protections, and is gleefully rolling back advances that were passed by Congress fifty years ago. This opinion is just one more blow in that campaign.
Finally, regarding cost:
Plan B and ella come in at around $30-$60 out of pocket, which yes, isn't hugely expensive. But why should these completely legitimate forms of medicine that do not cause abortions be exempted in this way?
An IUD is quite a bit more expensive, can be as much as $1000 for insertion (but lasts 5 years.) And as I outlined above, IUDs aren't only the safest and simplest option for many women, it is the only one aside from condoms, which are far less reliable. (And heaven help those poor women who are both allergic to latex AND react badly to HBC.)
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