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from the companies==people-er-does-not-compute dept.
gishzida writes:
"According to a Reuters report Supreme Court signals support for corporate religious claims, "The U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised on Tuesday to open the door to companies' religious-based objections to government regulations as justices weighed whether business owners can object to part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law. From the article:
During a 90-minute oral argument, 30 minutes more than usual, a majority of the nine justices appeared ready to rule that certain for-profit entities have the same religious rights to object as individuals do. A ruling along those lines would likely only apply to closely held companies. As in most close cases of late, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely be the deciding vote. Based on his questions, it was unclear whether the court would ultimately rule that the companies had a right to an exemption from the contraception provision of President Barack Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
The dozens of companies involved in the litigation do not all oppose every type of birth control. Some object only to emergency contraceptive methods, such as the so-called morning-after pill, which they view as akin to abortion.
The case marks the second time Obamacare has featured prominently before the Supreme Court. In 2012, the court upheld by a 5-4 vote the constitutionality of the act's core feature requiring people to get health insurance. Although the case has no bearing on the overall healthcare law, it features its own volatile mix of religious rights and reproductive rights. A capacity crowd filled the marble courtroom, while outside hundreds of demonstrators, most of them women, protested loudly in an early spring snowstorm.
We already know that the SCOTUS thinks corporations are citizens, do you think the SCOTUS should allow corporations to have religious beliefs too?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 27 2014, @04:36PM
Sometimes it's men forcing a woman to relinquish control of their own vagina. Sometimes the woman isn't in a position to give any kind of consent because she's 13 years old. Sometimes it's women who are taken advantage of when passed out. Sometimes it's women trusting men who, say, promise to marry them and then don't. Sometimes it's women who thought they could have a child and then it turns out that trying would kill them. Sometimes it's women who have decided to sleep with their boss in order to keep their job. And also remember that it takes two to tango, so even in cases where none of that coercion happened the men who impregnate women are as responsible for the consequences as women.
The fact is that you know nothing of what the situation is of people deciding to get an abortion. You know nothing about why they arrived at that decision, or how, or who they consulted. Among the women I've known that have told me about it, they consulted friends, pastors, parents, the man who got them pregnant, and a couple of hotlines. Planned Parenthood is very clear that they make sure that people who come in to get an abortion understand what other alternatives might be available. This isn't a case of someone waking up one day and deciding "Oh, well, I guess I have to have another abortion.", it's a case of somebody discovering that they have to make a terrible choice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 28 2014, @02:03AM
Sometimes it's men forcing a woman to relinquish control of their own vagina. Sometimes the woman isn't in a position to give any kind of consent because she's 13 years old. Sometimes it's women who are taken advantage of when passed out. Sometimes it's women trusting men who, say, promise to marry them and then don't. Sometimes it's women who thought they could have a child and then it turns out that trying would kill them. Sometimes it's women who have decided to sleep with their boss in order to keep their job. And also remember that it takes two to tango, so even in cases where none of that coercion happened the men who impregnate women are as responsible for the consequences as women.
None of which actually gets fixed by the health insurance policy in question. Free birth control isn't any better than cheap birth control, if your rapist doesn't use it.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 28 2014, @01:27PM
If a woman is using birth control pills, then if she's raped she's much less likely to get pregnant, regardless of what decisions the rapist makes. (And the idea that certain elected officials have been spreading about pregnancy not being a possible outcome of rape are simply laughably false.)
Of course, none of that diminishes the fact that rape is a serious crime, and that a woman on birth control pills who is raped is at risk of HIV and other STDs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:24PM
If a woman is using birth control pills, then if she's raped she's much less likely to get pregnant, regardless of what decisions the rapist makes.
So every woman between puberty and menopause should be on birth control just because they might get raped? Is that in a guideline somewhere?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:26PM
Damn it. I keep using those "quote" tags instead of the "blockquote" HTML tags. This is so similar to Slashdot that I habitually use the tag shorthands that I use for Slashdot. I suppose I should preview first.