Hobby Lobby: Be Careful What You Wish For

supreme-court-birth-control

Constitutionalists are celebrating this week’s Supreme Court ruling in the so-called Hobby Lobby case, but given the political climate in this country, perhaps they should not.  Perhaps they were better off as the aggrieved parties.

Why, you say?  Because however illegitimate the claim – and it is grossly illegitimate – leftists now have an issue that can distract from the disastrous second term of their president and, with the help of the establishment media, provide them with fresh ammunition in their well-developed meme about conservatives’ “war on women.”

In depicting this decision as the thin end of the wedge, or the camel’s nose under the tent, leftists are hysterically citing all manner of far-out possible sincerely held religious beliefs that could deny people certain mandated coverages.  What the left is really saying is, OMG, this means we might not be able to FORCE (fill in name of organization) to offer the coverage the HHS Secretary has decided they must offer.

While the statists try to convince us that the Supreme Court’s ruling will forever consign women to the rhythm method, the more sober, alternative interpretation is that the decision does not really amount to much because of the highly limited application specified throughout the text by Justice Alito, the author of the majority opinion.

The truth lies somewhere in between, and is dependent upon the ongoing political climate.  While the decision surely is a win for constitutionalists and a defeat for progressives, how much it will matter in the long run depends on whether we continue to have divided government.

The case for strong impact rests upon the reality that Obamacare is still in its formative stages, so decisions like this have a disproportionate impact on the ongoing perception and reality of the controversial law.  The case for minimal impact revolves around the chances that Democrats can, like from 2009-2011, wrest control of both houses of Congress and the White House and thus enact changes to the now-reviled statute that led to this decision.

Contrary to the widespread belief or assumption that this decision was about Obamacare, it was actually a ruling about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from forcing companies to offer this coverage.  So, the court ruled this federal law from 1993 – passed by a unanimous U.S. House and by 97-3 in the U.S. Senate, and signed into law by President Clinton – disallowed this HHS regulation.

Indeed, the republic’s electoral future and tolerance for changes to Obamacare through legislation will control just how much consequence the ruling actually has over lives of Americans.  But one thing is undeniable: the ruling has nothing to do with access for women to any kind of birth control.

Now, we should, of course, expect harpies like Sandra Fluke and Debbie Wasserman Schultz to leverage any decision they can for political gain, but this ruling stretched even their capacity for hysteria.  Fluke’s tweets after the ruling included “Supreme Court rules that bosses can deny employees coverage of birth control.” and “ [a]t the Supreme Court, a potential catastrophe for women’s rights.”  Wasserman Shultz offers the informative “Republicans want to do everything they can to have the long hand of government, and now the long hand of business, reach into a woman’s body and make health care decisions for her.”

Fluke’s lone claim to fame, you may recall, is that Rush Limbaugh made fun of her.  As the immediate past President for Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice, Fluke “testified” at a meeting of Democrats masquerading as a hearing on Capitol Hill that her school, the Jesuit Georgetown University School of Law, should be compelled – forced – to provide its students with contraceptive coverage that the Catholic religion views as morally vile, as part of the health care insurance policies it offered.  She lamented how much of a hardship it was for her and her sexually active friends to pay for contraception at $3,000 per year.

Limbaugh justifiably tore into her, including calling her a slut, which was deliberately over the top and raised many a hackle on the left.  But whether Ms. Fluke is promiscuous is beside the point, which was that she was worthy of scorn and ridicule.  Going to law school at a religious institution so that she could denigrate their sincerely held beliefs on certain kinds of conception and demand that they pay for her sexual choices was deplorable enough.  But she also lied through her teeth about the average cost of birth control, which even the most pro-choice organization in existence, Planned Parenthood, puts at “between $15 to $50 each month.”

Fluke, a current candidate for state senate in California (that makes perfect sense now, doesn’t it?) is, of course, outraged at how women are now going to be denied access to birth control, with the presumption that the next step will be ordering them to back alleys to exercise their “choice” in disposing of their inconvenient fetuses.  Tweet after op-ed, after blog post tell the tale.  The refrain will be, as Wasserman Schultz said, that the ruling denies women access to contraceptives, and that Republicans want to get between women and their doctors.

In reality, all this high court decision says is that employers cannot be forced to pay for insurance for four types of post-facto birth control if they have a sincerely held religious objection, and are “closely held” companies.  That’s it.  There is no capital C constitutional issue at play.

Hobby Lobby, the named plaintiff in the case, is owned by David Green and his family.  Green started the company with a $600 loan and became a billionaire – turning the store into a 500+ outlet operation.  He is also a devout Christian who offered his retail employees health insurance well before the ACA mandate – including 16 types of contraception.  The Green family’s faith, however, leads them to conclude that four types of contraception mandated by HHS are “abortifacients,” i.e. drugs causing the termination of a viable fetus, and that they are morally prohibited from furthering their use.  So they sued to stop being forced to pay for them.  That is all this is about – women’s “access” in this case means the government forcing employers to pay for a few types of birth control they believe to be immoral to use.

Unfortunately though, it is likely that the left will succeed in their attempts to cash in on this very reasonable decision to tighten and expand their grip on the single female and suburban housewife demographics by advancing the theme of Republicans/conservative’s war on the majority gender.  And like the Hispanic demographic, those are voters to whom the GOP must increase their appeal if they intend to rebuild a winning brand.

 

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