Our University’s Student Health Center allows women the right to contraceptives, and many take advantage of this helpful tool for varying reasons.
But as we all know, a person’s freedoms end as soon as they intrude on the freedoms of another or so go all the arguments for and against the First Amendment.
How do businesses matter while considering contraceptives and relative freedom? Well, they’re not people, so it shouldn’t matter.
The owners of Hobby Lobby, however, seem to think the religious rights of their corporation should be held in higher esteem than the human rights of others.
Before you jump on my case for mentioning human rights when discussing contraception — because fetuses are people to some — consider that there are many pressing issues about quality of life after birth that many U.S. organizations seem to overlook.
Hobby Lobby actually raised its minimum wage for full-time workers to $14 per hour and $9.50 for part-time workers in April, so it’s not one of the culprits on a basic level. Hobby Lobby tries to support it employees.
But the Supreme Court agreed last Tuesday to rule on the company’s case against the requirement that businesses offer contraceptives with no co-pay under the Affordable Care Act next session.
This whole argument aside, people need to stop whining about how oppressive the Affordable Care Act is for their livelihoods. If the goal is to allow the underprivileged to die off slowly, those complainers are doing a great job.
Truth is, nothing runs perfectly the first time around. This health care overhaul is no different, and we’ll work out the kinks for years to come.
The real issue here is that health care is finally problematic for the wealthy. If those in power could get what they wanted out of the reform, we wouldn’t have to argue about points that require miserly businesses to help out their female employees.
Because it really is females who would be affected by this change. Men may acquire contraception, but the options are much more diverse for females, and ignoring Hobby Lobby’s specific nitpick, the ruling could affect women’s access to medicine that could save their lives.
On the topic of the ever-important religious freedom, shouldn’t people other than Christians have the freedom to patronize the only craft store in their area and find holiday-specific decorations?
Maybe not, because we’re talking about the same company that objected to selling Jewish holiday items and only agreed to do so in test locations beginning this November.
I’ll try to imagine their thought processes here: Let’s just test religious equality and see how it pans out. Might not work. We really don’t want to allow shoppers to indulge their own religious beliefs. Just in case.
We should be proud of them for trying, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
I guess these poor God-fearing individuals are just at the beginning of the learning curve about what to do when forced to operate in a democratic country.
Maybe if they choose, they can move all the Hobby Lobbys to those few counties in Colorado who voted to secede from the state in the most recent election.
They’re super-conservative, they’d welcome all sorts of laws about sexual propriety, as long as it doesn’t involve any sort of empowerment. Or guns. Stay away from the guns.
Without those guns, they couldn’t take over the country, state by state, a slow rush of revolution headed for the rights of already-alive humans — women, for the most part.
And I’m pretty sure most women, except for the token one or two who speak at Republican rallies, are done with any sort of need for debate about birth control.
So let’s end it here. Let the Supreme Court rule in favor of human rights, not those of a potential fetus.
Megan Dunbar is a 20-year-old English senior from Greenville, SC.