SCOTUS Decisions on Hobby Lobby and Massachusetts Buffer Zones

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Alternate name: Yet Another Abortion Thread, Argue with Me! As Mills Lane would say, "I want a good, clean fight. Let's get it on!"

Hobby Lobby isn't about abortion. It's about the crazy idea that religious beliefs somehow trump everything in this country.

OG_slinger wrote:

Hobby Lobby isn't about abortion. It's about the crazy idea that religious beliefs somehow trump everything in this country.

Please see "Massachusetts Buffer Zones."

Nomad wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
I doubt you would be interested in federal legislation that only allows for abortion when the mother's life is in danger, right?

Sure, let's also make rape victims carry their baby to terms and potentially be forced to face their rapists for child custody battles, because I'm sure that will all work out alright. (You may think this is hyperbole, guess what, it's not! *facepalm*)

Also, I'm sure you're in complete support of making sure, for those mothers/families who are not financially able to support those children that they would have aborted if they had the choice, there is full life coverage so that the baby is fully supported on diapers, food, educational costs, clothing, shelter, health care, etc... until it turns 18, right?

Don't facepalm me buster! I'll see your facepalm and raise you the stink eye.

IMAGE(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RbPvJuhaFek/TysOZXvPpkI/AAAAAAAACVw/_bpgSSbBPhw/s1600/angry_baby.jpg)

If you aren't willing to agree to federal legislation that only allows for abortion when the mother's life is in danger, then don't play at the argument you gave earlier:

Demo wrote:

we expect a woman to risk serious problems with her health (including the possibility of death or a lifetime of medical conditions) for another person with no regards to her own choice in the matter.

Maybe I'm completely dense... but how does opposing legislation that ONLY allows abortion for cases of potentially life-threatening complications because I think there should be more reasons women should be allowed to have abortions (or really, I don't think the government should have ANY say in what a woman does to her body with regards to her own health) mean that I am not allowed to fight against said legislation? I feel like I missed a step in your argument... but reading through it several times... I'm not seeing how that's inconsistent.

I support a woman's right to decide what to do with her body. Life-threatening is ridiculously limiting, especially as we have such ridiculous requirements in such legislation that's been proposed thus far to determine what is an is not life-threatening. I'd rather not have a woman die because a committee of doctor's can't all agree if the complication is going to kill her. For all the talk about DEATH PANELS from the GOP during the ACA fights, they certainly seem quite alright with a different situation of people other than the patient and their primary care physician/the doctor currently treating them determining if someone should live or die based upon their own religious beliefs in the medical centers.

I support women being able to get an abortion in the case of rape. I support women being able to get an abortion in the case of birth control as a last resort. I don't think the government has any business saying what a woman can and can't do with her body. The fact that all of the legislation against these options is coming from the side of the Aisle that keeps saying that the government is too big, it's got it's hands into too many things... that they don't see the irony of the government doesn't belong anywhere except gay people's households and women's vaginas is f'ing ridiculous. Not that I expect the cognitive dissonance to ever register with the GOP. They'll continue on about how the government needs to stay out of things that let companies make more money, but continue to stick their nose in people's private lives with no thoughts to how bizarre it is that they can scream about one while practicing the other.

sometimesdee wrote:

Please see "Massachusetts Buffer Zones."

Based on previous threads about abortion, there's a good chance this one's simply going to be an express ride to Cleveland.

I'm just saying that Hobby Lobby has it's own thread that should be necroed because there's an assload of discussion to be had about what hell SCOTUS has unleashed on this country that is entirely separate from any discussion about abortion or free speech outside abortion clinics.

How about the irony of Hobby Lobby being against IUDs and Plan B, yet investing in manufacturers of both? How is that not against their religious beliefs?

Demosthenes wrote:
Nomad wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
I doubt you would be interested in federal legislation that only allows for abortion when the mother's life is in danger, right?

Sure, let's also make rape victims carry their baby to terms and potentially be forced to face their rapists for child custody battles, because I'm sure that will all work out alright. (You may think this is hyperbole, guess what, it's not! *facepalm*)

Also, I'm sure you're in complete support of making sure, for those mothers/families who are not financially able to support those children that they would have aborted if they had the choice, there is full life coverage so that the baby is fully supported on diapers, food, educational costs, clothing, shelter, health care, etc... until it turns 18, right?

Don't facepalm me buster! I'll see your facepalm and raise you the stink eye.

IMAGE(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RbPvJuhaFek/TysOZXvPpkI/AAAAAAAACVw/_bpgSSbBPhw/s1600/angry_baby.jpg)

If you aren't willing to agree to federal legislation that only allows for abortion when the mother's life is in danger, then don't play at the argument you gave earlier:

Demo wrote:

we expect a woman to risk serious problems with her health (including the possibility of death or a lifetime of medical conditions) for another person with no regards to her own choice in the matter.

Maybe I'm completely dense... but how does opposing legislation that ONLY allows abortion for cases of potentially life-threatening complications because I think there should be more reasons women should be allowed to have abortions (or really, I don't think the government should have ANY say in what a woman does to her body with regards to her own health) mean that I am not allowed to fight against said legislation? I feel like I missed a step in your argument... but reading through it several times... I'm not seeing how that's inconsistent.

I support a woman's right to decide what to do with her body. Life-threatening is ridiculously limiting, especially as we have such ridiculous requirements in such legislation that's been proposed thus far to determine what is an is not life-threatening. I'd rather not have a woman die because a committee of doctor's can't all agree if the complication is going to kill her. For all the talk about DEATH PANELS from the GOP during the ACA fights, they certainly seem quite alright with a different situation of people other than the patient and their primary care physician/the doctor currently treating them determining if someone should live or die based upon their own religious beliefs in the medical centers.

I support women being able to get an abortion in the case of rape. I support women being able to get an abortion in the case of birth control as a last resort. I don't think the government has any business saying what a woman can and can't do with her body. The fact that all of the legislation against these options is coming from the side of the Aisle that keeps saying that the government is too big, it's got it's hands into too many things... that they don't see the irony of the government doesn't belong anywhere except gay people's households and women's vaginas is f'ing ridiculous. Not that I expect the cognitive dissonance to ever register with the GOP. They'll continue on about how the government needs to stay out of things that let companies make more money, but continue to stick their nose in people's private lives with no thoughts to how bizarre it is that they can scream about one while practicing the other.

If an unborn baby is going to be killed, I would hope there is a better reason than inconvenience or possible poverty.

In that line of reasoning, why wouldn't we kill any child under 1 year old, born into poverty or a "bad home". They could do it painlessly, and at that age they don't really have the consciousness to know what is going on, right?

Hobby Lobby isn't about abortion. It's about the crazy idea that religious beliefs somehow trump everything in this country.

More specifically, it's that the religious beliefs of a piece of paper trump the religious beliefs of actual women.

Nomad wrote:

If an unborn baby is going to be killed, I would hope there is a better reason than inconvenience or possible poverty. In that line of reasoning, why wouldn't we kill any child under 1 year old...

Because embryos and fetuses aren't infants? Because so many pregnancies terminate themselves early?

sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:

If an unborn baby is going to be killed, I would hope there is a better reason than inconvenience or possible poverty. In that line of reasoning, why wouldn't we kill any child under 1 year old...

Because embryos and fetuses aren't infants? Because so many pregnancies terminate themselves early?

Lots of people die of natural causes. That does not justify killing the poor and inconvenient ones.

If an unborn baby is going to be killed, I would hope there is a better reason than inconvenience or possible poverty.

Why would you hope that? Edit: specifically, why would a hypothetical woman need to give you that in order to get your blessing?

Nomad wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:

If an unborn baby is going to be killed, I would hope there is a better reason than inconvenience or possible poverty. In that line of reasoning, why wouldn't we kill any child under 1 year old...

Because embryos and fetuses aren't infants? Because so many pregnancies terminate themselves early?

Lots of people die of natural causes. That does not justify killing the poor and inconvenient ones.

That's just it, embryos and fetuses are only considered people when it's convenient (this is meant in multiple ways).

It's pretty clear that all but a tiny number of conservatives don't think that fetuses are really people. You'd see a hell of a lot more funerals if they did, you'd see a huge crash social drive to prevent miscarriages, and fertility clinics would be treated as roughly equivalent to Auschwitz.

It's just a convenient, painful handle to twist, a method to punish the sluts.

Malor wrote:

It's pretty clear that all but a tiny number of conservatives don't think that fetuses are really people. You'd see a hell of a lot more funerals if they did, you'd see a huge crash social drive to prevent miscarriages, and fertility clinics would be treated as roughly equivalent to Auschwitz.

It's just a convenient, painful handle to twist, a method to punish the sluts.

It's pretty clear you have no idea what conservatives think, but that has never stopped you before.

The grief from a miscarriage is no small thing.

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

No disagreement here.

sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

No disagreement here.

Okay, then. Actions! Nobody's giving me an answer about Hobby Lobby's actions, in terms of putting their money where their mouths are.

If you are referring to your question about the reasoning behind HobbyLobby's policies, I'd say that it is a very strong possibility that HobbyLobby doesn't post on GWJ, so you might be waiting a while.

Nomad wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

No disagreement here.

Okay, then. Actions! Nobody's giving me an answer about Hobby Lobby's actions, in terms of putting their money where their mouths are. Am I the only one who sees a disconnect when Hobby Lobby says, "we don't want to pay for our employees to have certain drugs we consider to cause abortion*," yet they match said employees' 401k contributions to funds that make money off of the manufacturers of selfsame drugs?

[size=8]*There's debate as to whether IUDs and "morning-after pills" actually cause abortions, but that's not my main point here.[/size]

Nomad wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

No disagreement here.

Okay, then. Actions! Nobody's giving me an answer about Hobby Lobby's actions, in terms of putting their money where their mouths are.

If you are referring to your question about the reasoning behind HobbyLobby's policies, I'd say that it is a very strong possibility that HobbyLobby doesn't post on GWJ, so you might be waiting a while.

Neither does SCOTUS, yet we're all here.

Why the Hobby Lobby Ruling Sucks, An Economic Perspective:

For profit entities can now make the argument that their religious beliefs regarding contraception now require the HHS and therefore the public to shoulder the burden of operating costs that the business would otherwise have to pay under the ACA.

Want to increase your margins? Religion is the answer.

...except it's the health insurance providers who are supposed to shoulder the burden, at no extra cost to the employer.

Nomad wrote:
Malor wrote:

It's pretty clear that all but a tiny number of conservatives don't think that fetuses are really people. You'd see a hell of a lot more funerals if they did, you'd see a huge crash social drive to prevent miscarriages, and fertility clinics would be treated as roughly equivalent to Auschwitz.

It's just a convenient, painful handle to twist, a method to punish the sluts.

It's pretty clear you have no idea what conservatives think, but that has never stopped you before.

The grief from a miscarriage is no small thing.

Malor's pointing out a hypocrisy in religious conservative thought: they'll cry foul and play the morality card, but it's not really about morality: it's about control. Controlling women, and their bodies. That's what their religion has done for the last 2,000 years. Why stop now?

And I may have missed something, but where did he dismiss the emotional pain of a miscarriage?

As I understand it, the non profit exemption in the ACA was extended to for profit companies based on this interpretation of the RFRA, basically that if non-profits didn't want to pay for contraceptive coverage then HHS would step in to fill the gap to fulfill the ACA's contraception mandate.

The grief from a miscarriage is no small thing.

Of course it isn't. But you still don't see funerals but in a very, very few cases, and people that hold funerals for a miscarriage induce creepy shivers in others.

That's because everyone knows, fundamentally, that that was not really a person yet.

sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:
Nomad wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Particularly in the areas of policy and morality, actions speak far louder than rhetoric.

No disagreement here.

Okay, then. Actions! Nobody's giving me an answer about Hobby Lobby's actions, in terms of putting their money where their mouths are.

If you are referring to your question about the reasoning behind HobbyLobby's policies, I'd say that it is a very strong possibility that HobbyLobby doesn't post on GWJ, so you might be waiting a while.

Neither does SCOTUS, yet we're all here.

You weren't asking SCOTUS for their reasoning.

Malor wrote:
The grief from a miscarriage is no small thing.

Of course it isn't. But you still don't see funerals but in a very, very few cases, and people that hold funerals for a miscarriage induce creepy shivers in others.

That's because everyone knows, fundamentally, that that was not really a person yet.

So the only possible reason for not having a funeral for an unborn child = pro-abortion? That's a huge and illogical leap.

The whole control issue is a red herring. It is no more or less control when we enforce penalties for mothers who kill their newborns. Sure, they may not have wanted the child, or may not have been able to support him/her, but I don't see the great outcry against the pain and inconvenience of the life altering state of motherhood.

SocialChameleon wrote:

Why the Hobby Lobby Ruling Sucks, An Economic Perspective:

For profit entities can now make the argument that their religious beliefs regarding contraception now require the HHS and therefore the public to shoulder the burden of operating costs that the business would otherwise have to pay under the ACA.

Want to increase your margins? Religion is the answer.

TIME[/url]]The justices who supported it tried hard to limit the decision’s scope

When the Supreme Court ruled Monday that some corporations could opt out of providing insurance coverage for contraception, the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America characterized the decision as “a slippery slope with no end.” But a close look at the ruling reveals that the five justices who supported it tried hard to limit the decision’s scope. Here’s why the 5-4 ruling means less than you might think:

The ruling only applies to “closely held” corporations

According to the IRS, a company is closely held if five or fewer people own more than half the corporation. A family-owned private business like Hobby Lobby qualifies, but most publicly traded for-profit corporations do not. Some critics of the decision point out that more than 90% of all corporations in the U.S. are “closely held,” but a significant portion of these are so small they are not subject to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that’s the subject of the Hobby Lobby case anyway. The so-called employer mandate says companies with 50 or more workers must provide health insurance.

...

The court appeared to rule out using the Hobby Lobby decision to argue in the future that employers can object to covering drugs, devices, treatments and procedures not related to birth control

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs.”

SocialChameleon wrote:

As I understand it, the non profit exemption in the ACA was extended to for profit companies based on this interpretation of the RFRA, basically that if non-profits didn't want to pay for contraceptive coverage then HHS would step in to fill the gap to fulfill the ACA's contraception mandate.

Not quite. The majority claimed that the exemption the HHS worked out for religious non-profits could and should be extended to religious for-profit corporations because that would constitute the "least restrictive" way of imposing on Hobby Lobby's new found and apparently dearly-held religious beliefs, but they never mandated it.

That "least restrictive" way actually means contracting with a third-party insurance company to sign up women for special contraceptive-only coverage. That SCOTUS pointed out that said coverage didn't cost women nor insurance companies. In other words, SCOTUS said that the "least restrictive" way is actually that taxpayers need to pay for the religious beliefs of for-profit corporations.

Never mind that the majority never actually considered things like Hobby Lobby not providing self-insurance and, instead, purchasing insurance from an insurance company so its precious and consecrated corporate dollars didn't directly have to be spent on evil birth control.

And never mind that by saying that Hobby Lobby's religious issues with a handful of birth control methods were AOK that SCOTUS has effectively said that a newly-recognized Catholic corporation can now claim that it doesn't want to pay for *any* birth control because that's a no-no according to its religious beliefs. After all, if Hobby Lobby's issue with a couple of forms of birth control are religiously valid, then issues with any form of birth control is religiously valid. And now the fiction that this was a narrow ruling goes completely out the door.

Nomad: First, I'm fully aware of the scope of the ruling. The IRS definition was not invoked, in fact, the IRS wasn't even mentioned in the ruling, and the 20 times "closely held" is mentioned, it's not clarified. TIME is guessing, here.

Second, Alito didn't say all insurance coverage mandates not related to contraception were immune from challenge. The door is still quite open.

OG_slinger wrote:

That "least restrictive" way actually means contracting with a third-party insurance company to sign up women for special contraceptive-only coverage. That SCOTUS pointed out that said coverage didn't cost women nor insurance companies. In other words, SCOTUS said that the "least restrictive" way is actually that taxpayers need to pay for the religious beliefs of for-profit corporations.

This is the substance of my complaint, from an economic standpoint. Combined with the above, there exists a legal avenue to shift the cost of providing benefits from a business to taxpayers.

You have to wonder what is going through HL's accountants' heads here. One unplanned-to-term pregnancy is so much more of a cost than any of the birth control methods they've passed the buck on here being used multiple times. Hell, you could have multiple IUDs put in and removed and still not be coming close to the cost of a delivery and hospital stay for mother and child.

Demosthenes wrote:

You have to wonder what is going through HL's accountants' heads here. One unplanned-to-term pregnancy is so much more of a cost than any of the birth control methods they've passed the buck on here being used multiple times. Hell, you could have multiple IUDs put in and removed and still not be coming close to the cost of a delivery and hospital stay for mother and child.

That is a mystery. Maybe it's not really about the money for them after all.

Nomad wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

You have to wonder what is going through HL's accountants' heads here. One unplanned-to-term pregnancy is so much more of a cost than any of the birth control methods they've passed the buck on here being used multiple times. Hell, you could have multiple IUDs put in and removed and still not be coming close to the cost of a delivery and hospital stay for mother and child.

That is a mystery. Maybe it's not really about the money for them after all. ;)

No, it's about false piety and using a bullying position to inflict your small-mindedness on those you see as your minions. You know, like Jesus intended.

While we focus, rightly, on granting rights to conceptual entities, in practice, this just grants, like, double rights to certain powerful individuals. And the rights they're getting, like "The Right to Dictate what your Employees Use their Earned Compensation On," are not rights as we usually conceive of them.

Technically, employers have always had and are expected to always have that right. Most employers functionally don't exercise it, though. The balance on that deal has always been the employer making the offer and selecting how (and how much) to compensate the employee, and the employee deciding whether to take the job or not. The end result of this is generally a negotiated deal, but most employees can't, for instance, insist on having their employers pay them in foreign currencies, fruits, metals, or any such like.

If your employer pays out in slaps on the back, you can either quit or ask for more slaps. Normally can't demand to be paid in beef, instead.

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