EFFECTIVE THIS WEEK, A FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION has line-item veto rights to federal law. Isn’t that convenient?
Because it is owned and operated by a Christian family, Hobby Lobby can now choose not to comply with any portion of the law that offends their sensibilities.
Thank you, United States Supreme Court.
Reminds me of an axiom circulating online this week: Things happen for a reason — and sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid and make bad decisions.
Ahhh! That helped a little.
My goal each week is to give you a laugh, Dear Reader, but this week’s Supreme Court decision just sticks in the marrow of my funny bone. It felt good to vent. Glad to have it out of my system. For the moment, at least.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared in her dissenting opinion, “The fight isn’t over.”
I’m with “Notorious RBG,” as Justice Ginsburg is now being affectionately called. I wanna dig out a tie-dyed T-shirt, paint my face and carry a torch. I wanna sit in. “Hell no! We won’t go!”
OK, wrong slogan.
Breathe. Breathe.
What the hell are they thinking?? Don’t they have a big-picture point of view?! Of all people, the Supreme Court should be able to process the implications of their decisions.
Can’t they see that allowing Hobby Lobby, et al. to cherry-pick the parts of health care law — LAW — they want to abide by sets a bit of a precedent? Hello?!
You know, I don’t like it that as part of that same “mandated” health care package my tax monies pay for Viagra.
This is a deeply held belief of mine — a when-it’s-over-it’s-over philosophy that I believe men should accept. I’ve lived my life accordingly, mostly because that issue doesn’t affect me.
So it just naturally follows that I would not fund distribution of such a drug. Therefore, next April, I’m going to draw a red line on my Form 1040 and reduce my tax burden accordingly. That’ll work.
All right, Carolyn. Mellow! Mellow!
You know what? My blood pressure is up and I want to eat a bag of fun-sized Snickers.
But I can let this go.
Let’s talk about something else. Something completely different …
I woke up again this morning with parrot tongue. This is a bad sign because I’m being told that someone in this house is snoring.
In case you’re unaware, parrot tongue is a well-documented syndrome whereby an otherwise cultured and genteel person tenderly rests her head on her memory foam pillow and falls asleep instantly, drawing her life’s breath orally.
That is to say, she closes her eyes and steps off the precipice into the darkest depths of guilt-free slumber, post haste. Sheep uncounted. Lips parted just so.
When she wakes, some seven stress-free hours later, her tongue is the tongue of a Mojave Gila monster; her house pets cower in the bedroom corners and her husband hovers gleefully with his iPhone recording ready to play.
“Ha ha ha!” says he. “Listen to yourself, Honey! You could peel the paint off the walls! Tee hee hee! Wait until our son hears this!”
First of all let me just say that, squirrel mouth aside, I do not accept that the racket on that recording came from me.
My assertion is that my husband accumulated those sound effects over time in revenge for that innocent prank I played long ago when I dipped his hand in warm water.
No — those sounds came from somewhere else. Something else. Just recently, for example, he had to pry bent nails from warped boards on our deck. He could easily have had his recorder in his tool belt.
Our neighbor’s dog snarls at the slightest provocation. We visited Yellowstone when the buffalo were feeling frisky. Our house is haunted!
I don’t know! It wasn’t me, I tell ya!
All right. Let’s say Spouse A is possessed by the devil. She cannot control the proclamations of the Dark One! He has a lot on his mind and the volume set on 10.
Spouse B may be laughing but he’s looking frazzled.
This can’t be healthy physically, mentally or matrimonially! Medical science surely has some relief.
No worries. This one’s tailor-made for Christian health care.
Carolyn Plath, M.Ed., is a Benicia resident and retired high school principal. Read her blog at thinkdreamplay.blogspot.com.
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”Please. Please. Stay out of my womb! Legislators, interest groups, religious groups. I can management (sic) my womb just fine. I don’t need help, thank you very much! What is America’s obsession with invading the sanctity of a woman’s body?”
From “Women on the Move: Promoting Positivity in Women”
I wonder if in view of the Hobby Lobby decision if Feminists will reconsider their long used adage regarding staying out of their most personal of decision?
“Stay out of My Womb, but pay for my decisions”
Quoting Jonah Goldberg (prior to the recent court decision): Suddenly, the government is the hero for getting deeply involved in the reproductive choices of nearly every American, whether you want the government involved or not.
The way contraception works as well as the many uses it has beyond preventing pregnancy is not understood by many people, unlike vastectomies, which have no other purpose than to prevent pregnancy. There is no contradiction between women’s concerns about this recent and most troubling decision, and previous concerns about government interference in the bedroom and doctor’s office. Offering contraceptives (and Hobby Lobby recently said they are now going to look at ALL 16 other contraceptives covered) is not government interference in our health concerns, any more than requiring clean air and clean water to be the norm – by that argument, we are being forced to breath clean air and use clean water because, after all, the government is making sure, by law, that it is available to us. No one has to get birth control through insurance or any other source, any more than they have to get anti-depressives or diabetes meds, but you don’t hear anyone talking about taking those away, even though “bad choices and/or bad behavior” is often the cause of mental health and diabetic conditions. The hypocrisy of a corporation that has huge investment in companies that make the very meds they are keeping from their employees is, of course, another story entirely. If I remember correctly, Jesus, who is often quoted by the owners of HL, spoke out against hypocrites constantly; on the other hand, he never mentioned sex or contraceptives.
The way contraception works as well as the many uses it has beyond preventing pregnancy
Please educate us, what are the many uses of abortifacient drugs beyond the obvious use?
Sure, but to call what HL is banning an abortifacient (to make abort from the Latin) is a misnomer. It indicates a lack of understanding both about how a woman’s body works and how the meds affect it.
The 2 types of b.c. HL wanted banned are the “morning after pills” (2 brands) and IUDs. Neither are abortion-inducing.
Emergency Contraception (Morning After Pill):
From an article by 3 Princeton academics:
Emergency contraceptive pills (also called “morning after pills” or “day after pills”) prevent pregnancy after sex. It does not cause an abortion. (In fact, because emergency contraception helps women avoid getting pregnant when they are not ready or able to have children, it can reduce the need for abortion.)
Emergency contraceptive pills work before pregnancy begins. According to leading medical authorities – such as the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants in the lining of a woman’s uterus. Implantation begins five to seven days after sperm fertilizes the egg, and the process is completed several days later. Emergency contraception will not work if a woman is already pregnant.
EC works primarily, or perhaps exclusively, by delaying or inhibiting ovulation (release of your egg). It is possible that EC may affect the movement of egg or sperm (making them less likely to meet), interfere with the fertilization process, or prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.
You can also read more about the difference between EC and medical abortion on a fact sheet from the American Society for Emergency Contraception.
IUDs: An IUD prevents pregnancy by preventing the implantation of a fertilized embryo. Medically speaking, since an “abortion” is the termination of a pregnancy, and IUD does not cause an abortion since the pregnancy did not get a chance to start.
Now the can of worms opened is that HL and about 16 other corporations are “going to review” all the types of contraception. This issue is not about morality or religious freedom. I don’t think there is a woman of an older age, such as I am, who remembers fighting about this 50 years ago, who would not agree that this is about ALL birth control, which is what we’ve been fighting for since Margaret Sanger. It is about power and control, the reactionary response to women taking control of more than just their health issues. You can’t convince this old lady – and hundreds of thousands of my peers of all ages – that it is about anything else. We seen and heard it all before; we’ll continue to see, hear and argue about it until more women are involved in political discourse and decision making. The fact that we aren’t is, to a certain extent, our own fault!
DDL – I wrote a lengthy explanation of the 3 forms of birth control being dropped by Hobby Lobby, but, apparently since I used words like, well, birth control, abortion and uterus, the comment has not been posted. Sorry, but it was very informative – from an article written by 3 Princeton academics explaining why the morning after pill and IUDs are not the “a” word. You can google it yourself since I guess we are not grown up enough to discuss such things in the Herald! Again, sorry.
Thanks jfurlong. I will check it out.
I bet if you wrote a “lengthy piece” (800-1000 words) and worked on the phrasing, Marc would give it serious consideration to run it in the paper.
Abortion is a very touchy subject, one I usually avoid.
The comment you refer to was held for moderation for unknown reasons. It may be that you typed your email address incorrectly, or that the website’s spam monitor found its length suspicious. It was not an editorial decision. Ed.