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Wrong, Ruthie!  A woman who can´t afford the pill, or a condom....or who is having sex with a man who can´t afford to buy one.... can´t afford to be having sex. And that´s her problem. Not mine.  I am not morally obligated to prevent someone else´s pregnancy.         

Justice Ginsburg: Buying Contraceptives for Others is One of the ‘Obligations That Citizens Have’

(CNSNews.com) – Providing women with cost-free health-insurance coverage for contraceptives  is one of the “obligations” of citizenship, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Wednesday in an interview with Yahoo’s Katie Couric.

“Some people say there’s something troubling about mandating a private company though, to do something that is against their deeply held religious beliefs. What would you say to those people?” Couric asked Ginsburg, one of four dissenting justices in the court’s landmark Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision.

“When you’re part of a society, you can’t separate yourself from the obligations that citizens have,” the justice replied.

Ginsburg called the 5-4 ruling in Hobby Lobby “a decision of startling breadth." The case concerned a regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services under the Affordable Care Act that said virtually all health-insurance plans in the United States must provide all women of reproductive capacity with co-pay-free coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptives.

These "contraceptives" included two forms of IUDS and two drugs that can terminate a human life by preventing an embryo from implanting in the mother's womb. The Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, said buying these IUDs and abortifacients drugs violated its Christian faith and that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibited the federal government from forcing them to violate their faith in that way. The majority of the Supreme Court agreed.

“Your 35-page dissent has been described as blistering and scathing,” Couric noted to Ginsburg. “Why did you find this decision so disturbing?”

“The decision that an employer could refuse to cover contraceptives meant that women would have to take care of that for themselves or the men who cared,” Ginsburg replied. “Contraceptive protection is something that every woman must have access to to control her own destiny,” she added.

“I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don’t share that belief. I had never seen the free exercise of religion clause interpreted in such a way.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tatiana-lozano/justice-ginsburg-buying-contraceptives-others-one-obligations-citizens

This is where the lefties got the idea that employers could deny all contraceptives when in fact the suit dealt specifically with abortifacients which I wish she would stop calling birth control. Her idea that the Constitution should be interpreted not based on law but on outcome is proof she doesn't belong on the court. And her idea that the decision was split based on gender and men don't realize what a woman feels is more bunk.

Do I need to repeat my argument that the next president needs to be a Republican, any Republican? This woman as well as probably one or two more justices will likely retire during that time frame. Does anyone with more than half a brain and even a rudimentary understanding of the Constitution want more associate justices like Mrs. Ginsburg on the bench? There can be no more important mission than preventing that from happening.

It's stunning that a Supreme Court justice would say such a thing. God help us all if the Court is ever run by liberals, because the Constitution will be shredded.

Amen to that but lets hope the choice isn't the lesser of two evils and this issue is the final deciding point. Too many times I've either bit my tongue while I voted or simply voted none of the above.

This is so bizarre to me, in my country family planning began 30 years ago, we have one of lowest abortion rates in Europe and low teen pregnancy.

You cannot argue against facts, but these religious zealots don't care about reality, they just want to push their agenda, what's disturbing about this ruling is that it seems if you claim something is your religious beliefs it all goes...

"buying these IUDs and abortifacients drugs violated its Christian faith and that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibited the federal government from forcing them to violate their faith in that way. The majority of the Supreme Court agreed."

What will happen when some Muslims want to stone some little girl because that's their religious beliefs or Christians Scientists let a child die of appendicitis because that's their religious beliefs, should faith be an excuse to let people get away with anything?

Personally i'm an atheist and a conservative and I find the belief that the state should provide for everything from cradle to grave rather zealous in itself.

All Hobby Lobby wanted was to not to be forced to pay for after-morning pills, how is that a violation of someone's freedom or propping up a religious state? If they have to pay for that then why not force them to pay for toothpaste so all their employees have healthy teeth? Where does it end?

A pack of condoms is much cheaper than feeding a welfare rat for his entire existence. So for the first time ever, I agree with that disgusting POS, Ruth Ginsberg. Birth control should be made freely available. It reduces the future burden.

The liberal women demanding that society owes them free abortifacients is like drug addicts demanding that the society owes them free drugs.

We all know this decision was specific.  But supreme court decisions set precedent that extends beyond the specifics of a case.  Google that word and get back to me when you understand it then we can discuss the precedent this decision has set.

 I wonder if it ever occurred to you that employers have no business denying ANY employee ANY approved drug, for ANY reason of their own.  Especially when the insurance that covers said drug is paid for in large part by the employee, and as part of her/his earned compensation.  That is wage theft.   Incidentally, some of the drugs in contention are NOT abortifacients, technically or conceptually.

I'll start listening to this SHIT as soon as I start hearing the outcry about woodie-enhancing drugs and devices covered by insurances.   

So when will my boss be forced to pay for my toothpaste and dental floss? Isn't it in the public's interest for me to have healthy gums and teeth?

Actually I see societal benefits in making birth control freely available. 

The question here is whether it should be part and parcel of some sort of "National Health Insurance Program."  That begs the question not what should society benefit from, but what, exactly is INSURANCE?

Insurance is not paying for ALL MEDICAL COSTS.  Insurance is not placing society's interest above that of the individual.  Insurance is paying a portion of costs and covering catastrophic costs.

The interjection of politics into medicine will only have bad consequences. 

"Give them bread and circuses!"

I forgot to say, abortions are free in my country.

Well, are you going to get pregnant if you don't wash your teeth a couple days, is that something that will impact or endanger your life, will that result in another child in the system that then you will need to pay for?

You can cut the bullshit, this case isn't about money, it's about religious zealots imposing their view about the role of women in society.

And imposing this fanaticism that sex is some kind of right is just as bad. If you can't afford a few dollars a month for birth control maybe you shouldn't be having sex period. If your only argument is "well it's a good idea" I can come up with all sorts of things the government can pay for to make society better, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the constitutional or right idea.

If all your basic necessities in life are paid for by the state what is the point to getting a job?

Why do these conservative women support a religion that tries to control other women and their rights as Americans?

Why do they continually support state laws that strip women of their rights?

Are they brainwashed?

ROTFL

I'm dead serious, if you can afford a date night with dinner and a movie before getting it on, you can afford to pick up a box of condoms at the local 711.

Please, I'm still laughing.

I'm still laughing at your idea that not forcing a company to pay for birth control for their employees is going to lead to Muslims stoning young girls and getting away with it.

Brainwashed, scared, really don't like women, afraid someone's going to come along and rock their little raft, miserable as it is.   Who cares.   

You mean your "rudimentary understanding" of the constitution?  None of you seem to understand the unconstitutional precedent.  For example, A satanic Temple has already invoked the ruling to object to informed consent.  They wish to deny anyone seeking an abortion informed consent, based on religious objection.   Mainly because informed consent is allowed to not tell the truth.  They cite the Hobby lobby case suggesting many forms of birth control are abortifacents, when they are not.

Scalia even ruled against himself on this one. In 1990, an indian tribe wanted to use peyote for a religious ceremony and he ruled no. His words....".if I allowed American Indians to break the law by using peyote as part of a religious ceremony, all other religions would try to get exceptions. Religious belief, no matter how pious, cannot trump law". Wow...he sounds exactly like Ginsberg here. I guess its ok if its just some savage indian belief....or a dirty muslim.

The problem here is that the majority is fine when it is a Christian belief, but as soon as Indians want to smoke peyote or muslims want to treat female worker differently, then you will all be singing a very different tune.......just like scalia.Im also curious about this part of the constitution.........could someone point me to the part of the constitution that says a corporation is a person?

Nor do they. But some employers are taking a stand on furnishing drugs that violate their religious convictions, and that's what eats at radical feminists .


Ginsburg is a liberal loon who puts her politics ahead of the Constitutions she swore to uphold and defend. If liberals cannot live within our Constitution, then let them rise up and take over America.

Again this is all apples and oranges. This is an issue about a private entity being forced to purchase a product against their will for their employees. If you can force a company to provide healthcare or birth control what is there to stop the government from mandating companies provide gym memberships, "free" food, personal trainers, etc.

Yeah all these goodies sound all well and nice but none of it is a right.

OK bear with me, I'm a bit confused and don't quite get how religion or morals are involved here...

So some judge woman says there should be free contraception/morning after pills for women.
Then some Christians complain because contraception/abortion is against their morals. (is that it?)

If the woman wants an abortion, are the Christians saying she shouldn't be allowed by law? These anti-abortion idiots should get off their high horse, what if she's a pagan, or an atheist, and believes she should have responsibility over her own body? Last time I checked being a Christian wasn't a legal requirement of being an American citizen.

Also this is absolutely retarded from an economic point of view. If a woman has a child she cannot afford, you will be paying for that child's welfare. That's gonna cost a lot more than the price of 1 pill.

If it's "Oh noes I'm being forced to pay money for something that's against my religion", then I would think there are more pressing issues with your tax money, like the massive defence budget that goes toward killing thousands of people every year. What happened to Jesus' ideology of forgiving people instead of blowing them up?

If you are living in a society which demands you pay taxes (whether that's right or wrong is another matter), then contraception should be a basic right, along with food and shelter. If you want to see what happens when contraception is illegal/seen as immoral, then have a look at the quality of life in some of the poor African countries that don't use much birth control.

Look, shooting people is against my principles.  I don't do it. 

Oh, you do?  Whatever.  Wait a minute, you want me to pay you to shoot people? 

Again no one is making contraception illegal! This Hobby Lobby ruling didn't declare it was illegal! All it declared was a company can't be forced to pay for it, which is their right, it is their money, they hire the employees, they should be able to run their business as they see fit, if you don't like it go work somewhere else.

The funny thing in all of this is Hobby Lobby is rated as one of the best companies in America to work for and they start ALL their full-time employees at $14.50 an hour with health insurance and I think matching 401k. I have a bachelor's degree and I only make $15. If you can't afford BC or condoms off that salary then you seriously have your priorities in life messed up.

I respected her when I was younger but she is becoming increasing radical in the last few years and saying things that are just downright crazy.  As a woman I see things differently than others on this board but she is bat shit crazy in her twilight years.

If you pay taxes, as everyone should (not just the successful) then the taxes should only go to things that an individual cannot buy as an individual. Examples would be a national defense, police and fire protection, consumer protection, highway system. Things like food and shelter should not be paid with taxes as people can buy this on their own and there is no reason to give money to the government for them to spend on food, when you can buy the food directly.

This is just crazy. Nothing more nothing less. This woman is detached from reality. Poor people does not need our money, they don't need our condoms. I think that next she will be proposing new kind of tax - called 'condom tax'. Then government will have money to buy condoms for poor people...

You never came across a radical feminist in your life, dummy, and if you did you'd support stoning her.  There is nothing "radical" about me OR feminism....I just get in your face and you don't like it.    Nor is there anything radical about equal treatment.
Just go back to enjoying your computer while the wife works.  Ginsburg is still working at 83, not because she has to but because she wants to.

As an atheist, I have an anti religious conviction.  It is against my deeply held lack of religious belief to allow any employee to have a religious holiday, say anything religious, or wear any religious jewelry.  I am very glad the supreme court is on my side.

As a muslim, I have many religious convictions.  It is against my deeply held religious belief that women should have equal pay as men.  I am cutting all women's salaries to 50%.  I am very glad the supreme court is on my side.

As an indian, I have many spiritual convictions.   It is against my deeply held spiritual belief that anyone should work for me without being high on peyote.  I am very glad the supreme court is on my side.

Read...and then make an argument that it applies in this instance or not.

The majority opinion was delivered by Justice Scalia. The First Amendment forbids government from prohibiting the "free exercise" of religion. This means, of course, that government may not regulate beliefs as such, either by compelling certain beliefs or forbidding them. Religious belief frequently entails the performance of physical acts—assembling for worship, consumption of bread and wine, abstaining from certain foods or behaviors. Government could no more ban the performance of these physical acts when engaged in for religious reasons than it could ban the religious beliefs that compel those actions in the first place. "It would doubtless be unconstitutional, for example, to ban the casting of statues that are to be used for worship purposes or to prohibit bowing down before a golden calf."

But Oregon's ban on the possession of peyote is not a law specifically aimed at a physical act engaged in for a religious reason. Rather, it is a law that applies to everyone who might possess peyote, for whatever reason—a "neutral law of general applicability," in the Court's phrasing. The Court characterized Smith's and Black's argument as an attempt to use their religious motivation to use peyote in order to place themselves beyond the reach of Oregon's neutral, generally applicable ban on the possession of peyote. The Court held that the First Amendment's protection of the "free exercise" of religion does not allow a person to use a religious motivation as a reason not to obey such generally applicable laws. "To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." Thus, the Court had held that religious beliefs did not excuse people from complying with laws forbidding polygamy, child labor laws, Sunday closing laws, laws requiring citizens to register for Selective Service, and laws requiring the payment of Social Security taxes.

By contrast, the cases in which the Court had allowed a religious motivation to exempt a person from a neutral, generally applicable law involved the assertion of both the right of free exercise along with some other right. Thus, religious publishers are exempt from a law requiring them to obtain a license if that license may be denied to any publisher the government deems nonreligious. The government may not tax religious solicitors. The government may not require the Amish to send their children to school because their religion demands otherwise, and Amish parents, like all parents, have the right to direct the education of their children. Because Smith and Black were not asserting a hybrid right, they could not claim a religious exemption under the First Amendment from Oregon's ban on peyote.

In the alternative, Smith and Black argued that at the very least, the Court should only uphold Oregon's ban on peyote as applied to them if Oregon had a compelling interest in prohibiting their religious use of peyote. The Court had, after all, invalidated three other unemployment compensation restrictions under this standard. But those other restrictions themselves required consideration of individualized circumstances, such as when unemployment compensation was denied to a person who could not, for religious reasons, work on Saturdays. If a state has in place a system of individualized consideration, the constitution did not allow the state to refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without a compelling reason.

But the difference between the other unemployment cases the Court had decided and Smith's and Black's case was that Oregon's ban on peyote applied to everyone equally—in other words, it made no room for individualized consideration of the reasons a person might want to use peyote.
“   The "compelling government interest" requirement seems benign, because it is familiar from other fields. But using it as the standard that must be met before the government may accord different treatment on the basis of race, see, e.g., Palmore v. Sidoti, or before the government may regulate the content of speech, see, e.g., Sable Communications of California v. FCC, is not remotely comparable to using it for the purpose asserted here. What it produces in those other fields -- equality of treatment, and an unrestricted flow of contending speech -- are constitutional norms; what it would produce here -- a private right to ignore generally applicable laws -- is a constitutional anomaly.

@ Spendulus/solid

Yeah I apologise, I got the wrong end of the stick. No, I agree that corporations shouldn't be forced to pay for stuff like this for their employees. However, I think it would be a good idea for them to voluntarily provide the service (if such a service is not provided by the government).

@ Mobius

I was talking more about food/shelter for people that can't afford it (eg if they're disabled or unable to work - I misunderstood that this issue was about a company being forced to pay).

In the UK we have free sexual health clinics (open to everyone, regardless of income) where you can receive treatment, advice and free contraception/morning after pills. It's one of the few services where my tax money goes that I agree with, from both a social and economic standpoint.

Thanks.  I'm actually not opposed to the government providing various types of "birth control".  In the US I lean more toward that should be state level thing than federal. 

But there's something about forcing the employers to do something that to them is morally and ethically wrong that really is bothersome.  Sort of an "in your face" insult.

Meanwhile here in the US we see open disregard for the rule of law in some cases, and unduly harsh enforcement in other areas.  This is explicitly an Obama/Holder thing, by the way.