by Lande Watson
Every morning when I wake up, I put on my feminist suit of armor, ready to face a day of sexism and misogyny. As a girl activist fighting for gender equality I always knew there would be plenty of issues to tackle in my lifetime. How will sexism impact a successful female presidential candidate in 2016? (Knock on wood). How can we get more women represented in growing job sectors especially in STEM Fields? Why are young girls less likely to pursue a career in politics?
But there are some battles I never thought I would have to fight in the year 2014.
Birth control became publicly available in the 1960s in the US. In the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated the constitutional “right to marital privacy” and a 1972 case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, expanded the right to possess and use contraceptives to unmarried couples. I would not be born for another 27 years.
A few months ago, I truly believed the only thing that would stop me from getting birth control if I decided to take it, would be embarrassment from telling my slightly too smiley pediatrician. I assumed that the ability to access a wide range of reproductive health care services was a given for both me and my friends, born almost 3 decades after the first birth control pill became available in 1960.
The US Supreme Court
And then five men messed it up. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court—or rather, five of its men, Justices Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy—ruled in favor of a business’s right to impose its religious beliefs on its employees. Hobby Lobby no longer has to provide its employees with the full range of birth control options guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act, because their religion says so.
And now, the questions about birth control increase. It’s no longer just “which birth control option is the best for me and my body?” It’s “where can I work where I won’t be denied birth control?” or “how am I going to pay for this medication if my job won’t cover it?” Aren’t these the questions and concerns the Affordable Care Act was supposed to address with the Birth Control Mandate?
When I woke up to a world where my access to reproductive health care was just a little less secure and a little more subject to the whim of my future employers, I was disappointed and upset.
The ruling offended me as an activist and as a woman.
Because there are so many important battles to be fought. Before the SCOTUS ruling, I thought I had my basic rights to reproductive health care covered. Sure, if I decide to go to graduate school in Louisiana or work on a political campaign in Texas (and lots of other places, 21 states have anti-choice governments) someday, my ability to access a safe and legal abortion will be in jeopardy. And with the Buffer Zone ruling made earlier in the week, it is clear that my ability to safely and comfortably access an abortion is not 100% secure. But this. This monumental mistake made by 5 men on the Supreme Court is on another level of upsetting.
The idea that five male justices, none of whom have ever had an I-forgot-to-take-my-pill-yesterday freak out, made a decision that could potentially impact my ability to access health care options is ridiculous and offensive. They say it was about protecting religious beliefs, but was it really?
Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) plan “has millions of dollars invested in funds that own the companies that make birth control methods including Plan B, the so-called ‘morning after’ drug.” The authors of the majority opinion suggested that the ruling narrowly applied to Hobby Lobby (just a few days after the ruling it was proved that it was not so narrow after all), but as Ruth Bader Ginsburg aptly asked in her dissent, “”Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
from Obama's facebook page
So, if this ruling isn’t really about the importance of deeply held religious belief, then what is it about? It’s about controlling women’s bodies. Being a teenage girl is hard. You’re still subject to your parents’ decisions, your friends are all changing and boys are just plain weird. But the newly layered icing on the cake, the real kicker, is the government and businesses trying to control your body. That’s right. Now, not only does your mom get to control what you wear (“sweety, that skirt really is way too short”), but the men of the Supreme Court and future employers get to control your access to a full range of reproductive health care services.
An important piece of healthy sexuality, and growing up for that matter, involves making decisions that are right for your body. And taking the step to access birth control, if it’s what’s right for you, is part of that. Threatening women’s access to basic reproductive health care challenges healthy sexuality, and general health as well (birth control is used to treat a wide variety of illnesses).
The argument made in the Hobby Lobby Case was about religious beliefs and the inaccurate idea that birth control is somehow an abortifacient. But denying women access to birth control is also about vilifying and discouraging women who might want to have sex and not get pregnant. Women take birth control for a wide range of health reasons, but they also take it because [shocker!] women like sex. Discouraging female sexuality while okay-ing male sexuality (Viagra will still be covered by Hobby Lobby’s health care plan) is sexist and promotes false notions that girls don’t or shouldn’t like sex. When birth control is seen as a “lesser health care item” (or not considered a health care item at all), it sends a dangerous message that my right to decide if and when I want to have a family (or if I don’t) is not a right at all, but is constantly at the whim of my employer. And that as a girl, my body and my health are of less importance than my boss’s religious beliefs.
activists at George Washington University
These messages are out there, but they are untrue and unacceptable. The Hobby Lobby case started a battle I never thought I would have to fight in 2014, but I’m here, and I’m ready to fight.