Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, ruling that the government cannot require employers to provide medical insurance coverage for emergency contraception or methods of birth control if it clashes with their religious beliefs. My initial reaction to this decision echoes the sentiments of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg who today said, “the court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.” Justice Ginsburg’s comparison of the decision to a minefield is accurate, as it has brought the sense of fear and uncertainty as to what is the future of religious freedom, healthcare coverage and women’s rights and how they all will work together under the Constitution. But more importantly, this ruling has even further complicated what these now obscure terms actually mean.
Photo Credit: Flickr user American Life League and used under a Creative Commons license.
Initially, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the main piece of legislation utilized by Hobby Lobby Stores, was never intended to be used by large corporations. Traditionally, the Act has been used to protect Native American sacred lands that are for worship against ever-expanding government projects, the rights of Muslim military personnel to wear beards, or to exempt children from school required vaccinations due to a family’s religious objections. But the good intentioned inception of the Act has taken a more political turn regarding what it means to be free to practice religion and one’s rights and control over their own personal medical care. And as Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and States, suggests, “Scientology-believing employers could insist on non-coverage of its nemesis, psychiatry. Jehovah’s Witness-owned corporations could demand exclusion from surgical coverage, under the theory that so many of such procedures require the use of whole blood products forbidden by their faith.” Needless to say, today’s ruling has opened the door to more exceptions and interpretations of not only the law but the power and influence of religion in the United States.
Meghan Smith, a Catholics for Choice associate, stated Hobby Lobby’s victory today will be “tomorrow’s civil rights disaster” allowing for similar cases to go to the Supreme Court based on religious freedoms of corporations and companies. Within the past year alone there have been numerous stories involving bakeries refusing to make wedding cakes for homosexual couples, restaurants refusing to serve interracial couples and children forced to go to “gay conversion therapy” if they showed the slightest inkling of interest to things outside of their religiously mandated, gendered interests. Simply put, today’s ruling just may be a domino effect upon the rights of more than just women.
As a 25-year-old female ethnic minority I was born and raised in the United States learning about how “blessed” Americans were. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have the freedom to follow any religion I chose, receive excellent health care regardless of my low socio-economic background, and as woman make decisions for myself regarding whether I wanted to have a family … or not. I felt a sense of injustice for those in other “less fortunate countries” that couldn’t do all of the things I could. But today’s decision has made me question what I’ve been conditioned and taught to believe, transferring that sense of injustice from others onto myself. It is hard to ignore that perhaps today’s ruling is an omen of what is to come for religiously charged, legally supported discrimination in the United States.
I can’t help but fear that in a way the tables have turned against social change and the acceptance of a new era in our collective history. I must admit, through the women’s rights movement, the sexual revolution, the abolition of segregation and the on-going successes for same-sex marriages, I never imagined nor prepared for the day where a potential employer would inquire if I had any questions and I would ask “What is the company’s overall religious affiliation?”
Stephanie Murti is a California native studying non-proliferation and terrorism studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Thank you ,your writing really laid out my feelings, and that this no small step backwards!