The Supreme Court made a terrible decision yesterday, ruling that employers are allowed to deny access to birth control to their employees.
This idea is that forcing an employer to pay for the birth control of their employee as part of their health insurance is forcing the business owner to violate their religious beliefs.
The first problem I have with this is very simple. If a Quaker is opposed to war they have to still pay taxes, and 1 in 8 of their tax dollars will go to military, despite it being a long held religious conviction that war is against the word of God. Quakers do not get a 12% tax reduction because of their opposition to war. This is unequal treatment under the law.
My second major problem with this is that this is not the employer deciding whether they personally will or will not get birth control. That is their body and their choice. The issue here is that as part of employment, the United States has reached a compromise that employers provide health insurance for their employees as part of employment, in lieu of a Medicare for all scheme. Birth control is a form of health care. Period. The employer doesn’t get to dock an employee’s pay because that employee decides to use their money one way or another. They have paid that employee for work and at that point the only other person who has any legal right to say how that individual spends their money is their lawfully wedded spouse if they are in a community property arrangement. If that employee decides to use their income to buy condoms or an IUD, it is none of that employer’s business, and they should have no say.
This decision is so highly unethical, that it is saying that employers have a legal right to say what employees may or may not use their income to do. As part of the contract of employment that employer is obligated to provide health insurance. That is the compromise the United States reached when we could not get enough Senators on board to back Medicare for All. Part of that compromise is that health insurance needs to be all encompassing.
This idea that the employer is paying for health insurance is also a half truth, because there is a small but very real reduction in cash wages when employers provide benefits to employees, and that employee is paying some of that cost by slightly lower cash. That’s just how such things work in microeconomics. At that point the business owner is forcing the purchases of their employee because of some religious hang up because of that amount the cash wages are necessarily being reduced by benefits, which is forcing their religion on the personal purchases of their employees. Any individual who forces their religion on another is violating the first amendment.
Fuck it, health care is a human right. Birth control is a human right.
Fuck this shit.
I’m so fucking tired of these Republicans trying to jam their religion down my throat. I am so fucking tired of these prudes telling me what I can and cannot say. I feel like we are still living in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials with this bullshit.
I’m fucking angry.
Birth control is a human right. Comprehensive sexual education is a human right.
People deserve to understand their bodies.
People deserve to have control over their bodies.
If you have a problem with that you can suck my dick.