Hold On To Your Reproductive Rights, Ladies!

The fight for the reproductive rights of American women is ramping up.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday that the government cannot force certain employers to pay for birth control was more than a rebuke to President Obama. It was vindication of the conservative movement’s efforts to chip away at laws it finds objectionable by raising questions of freedom of expression. 

 The decision — like several recent rulings from the justices and lower courts involving prayer at town meetings and protests outside abortion clinics — carved out a significant, albeit narrow, legal exception in the context of a broader cultural fight that social conservatives have been unable to win outright.  

The ruling comes as social conservatives have suffered setbacks on another high-profile social issue, same-sex marriage, and leaders predicted Monday’s decision would infuse Republicans with energy as they fight to take control of the Senate this year and reclaim the White House in 2016.  

“The court has made clear today that the Obama administration’s assault on religious freedom in this case went too far,” said Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, one of several conservative Republicans weighing a White House run. “But this assault will not stop in our courts, in our schools and in the halls of power.”    New York Times Jul 1, 2014

Corporations are (not) people, my friends.  But apparently SCOTUS thinks they are. Yesterday's ruling on the Hobby Lobby case has given companies the right to decide if they want to support your contraceptive choices, on the grounds of religious beliefs.  In other words, if they don't believe in your method of contraception, they aren't going to pay for it.  

I suppose it makes sense on the surface.  I mean, why should a Christian Science employer pay for any kind of medical insurance?  After all, "sickness is an illusion that can be cured by prayer alone."  They don't need no stinkin' health insurance! 

It does beg the question, where does this end?

...the court ruled that closely held corporations that have religious objections to providing birth control to employees through benefits programs are free to stop doing so...

A number of corporations and nonprofits have signaled their intents to either continue their own pending lawsuits in lower courts, or move forward and drop their birth-control coverage given the Hobby Lobby ruling. The Daily Beast has a tally of 46 corporations and 36 nonprofits with pending cases.   Vanity Fair online 7/01/2014

The willingness of a "closely held corporation" wanting to exercise First Amendment rights  when it comes to what it will and will not honor opens the door to chipping away at women's rights. At what point do we, as a nation, demand the corporation seek the common good?  Why do they have the right to decide my method of contraception  and still not pay me equally for the same job as a man? 

When does the right of a woman to choose prevail?  It costs over $250,000 to raise a child to adulthood today.  Is it a woman's sole fault if she becomes unintentionally pregnant?  No.  But it can and will be her responsibility if she goes it alone, if she has no partner, if she cannot afford to raise a child.  I don't advocate abortion as birth control.  I do advocate my right to choose should I need to make the choice.  

Isn't it much simpler and less painful to take preventive contraceptive measures to avoid having to make that choice?  

G-L-O-R-I-A

Anybody watch the HBO special "Gloria, In Her Own Words"?   It's a portrayal of Gloria Steinem as a feeling thinking woman who became the iconic public face of the Women's Movement.  The narration is hers.  It's intimate.  The details, in some of her stories, are ordinary and relatable.  For example, she developed her trademark hair coloring of streaky highlighted hair because she loved Audrey Hepburn's hair in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."  She said she identified with Holly Golightly.  (really?)

She believed her looks to be an advantage in the women's movement but she did not want them to get in the way of her seriousness.  Makes sense.  She was the antithesis of how women in the early days of the movement were portrayed in the press.   Many people, women included,  thought of womens' libbers as unattractive, man-hating, angry broads out to destroy the family unit and AMERICA.  Sound familiar?

The Woman's Movement was condemned for having an agenda.  It was a tall order.  Steinem, along with the foremost forward thinking women of her day rallied, marched and worked to ratify the  Equal Rights Amendment and Roe v Wade.  Roe v Wade passed in 1973.  The ERA still hasn't been ratified in all 50 states and it's been in play since 1923.

What particularly stood out in this memoir was the vitriol she faced; how maligned she was and still is.  There is video of a shrill, hateful exchange from a woman caller to "The Larry King Show".  There was an incident of public flogging when some pornographer had a graffiti like portrait of her painted on the wall of her office building.  She's naked, her labia exposed, with hairy penises surrounding her.  She is overwhelmed.  She cries.  She's vulnerable.

Her experiences informed her views, her journalistic talent led her to explore and test those views with her readers.  As founder of Ms. Magazine in 1972, she started the first women's magazine written and published by women for women.  Dismissed and discounted as a flash in the pan, Ms. Magazine is still going strong today.  As is Gloria.