10 Blistering Highlights from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Hobby Lobby Dissent

1 July 2014

Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a scathing 35-page dissent in the disastrous 5-4 Supreme Court decision Monday granting corporations First Amendment religious rights to deny women birth control coverage. The court had ventured far out in to unprecedented territory by granting private companies the right to be exempt from laws their owners don't agree with. Crazy!

In their zeal to deny women access to reproductive healthcare, expand the rights of corporations and hurt Obamacare, "The court," she wrote, "has ventured into a minefield."

Sadly, her clear-eyed reasoning did not sway the Court's five arch conservatives, but it is worth reading her dissent here (starts on page 60.)
For those in a bigger hurry, here are highlights:

• 1. "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."
  
  
• 2. "Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude."
  
  
• 3. "Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community."
  
  
• 4. "The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive coverage"
  
  
• 5. "Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby's or Conestoga's plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman's autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults."
  
  
• 6. "It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month's full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage."
  
  
• 7. “Even if one were to conclude that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga meet the substantial burden requirement, the Government has shown that the contraceptive coverage for which the ACA provides furthers compelling interests in public health and women’s well being. Those interests are concrete, specific, and demonstrated by a wealth of empirical evidence.”
  
  
• 8. “The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention. One can only wonder why the Court shuts this key difference from sight.”
  
  
• 9. “Suppose an employer’s sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of vaccines, or paying the minimum wage, or according women equal pay for substantially similar work?”
  
  * 10. “The Court does not even begin to explain how one might go about ascertaining the religious scruples of a corporation where shares are sold to the public. No need to speculate on that, the Court says, for ‘it seems unlikely’ that large corporation ‘will often assert RFRA claims.’”

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/10-blistering-highlights-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-hobby-lobby-dissent?akid=11975.1921399.1gRhW9&rd=1&src=newsletter1008624&t=5

What does she know about the Constitution? Nothing would be the answer...

As a matter of fact, none of them follow it as close as they should... ...none.

---

Must not conflict resolve by suggesting that someone should go sit on an ice pick...

Still waiting Es99, still waiting... ;-)

---

Must not conflict resolve by suggesting that someone should go sit on an ice pick...

What does she know about the Constitution? Nothing would be the answer...

ID your opinion does not count or matter.

---

What does she know about the Constitution? Nothing would be the answer...

As a matter of fact, none of them follow it as close as they should... ...none.

She is a supreme court judge. I'd say she knows a lot.

---

Reality Internet Personality

Still waiting Es99, still waiting... ;-)

You can wait all you want. I don't answer to you.

---

Reality Internet Personality

Women, systematically mistreated for millennia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them.

Hopefully, Byron, hopefully.

Women, systematically mistreated for millennia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them.

Hopefully, Byron, hopefully.

+1

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

This will need to be over-turned.

Corporate religious beliefs (if such a thing is possible) can't be granted more weight than the rights of an individual.

I always laugh when I think of the terrible human-rights violations of the US and compare them to those of the demonised China. But I digress...

This decision appears to overturn the First Amendment that guarantees Freedom of Religion, which implies also Freedom FROM Religion. So I would imagine this new ruling will be overturned reasonably quickly.

---

Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

This will need to be over-turned.

Corporate religious beliefs (if such a thing is possible) can't be granted more weight than the rights of an individual.

I always laugh when I think of the terrible human-rights violations of the US and compare them to those of the demonised China. But I digress...

This decision appears to overturn the First Amendment that guarantees Freedom of Religion, which implies also Freedom FROM Religion. So I would imagine this new ruling will be overturned reasonably quickly.

By who? This ruling is done by the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. There is no other court that can overturn its ruling, only the Supreme Court can, and that requires that one of the conservative judges goes away and gets replaced by a more moderate or liberal judge.

A liberal congress could put forward an amendment further detailing freedom of and from religion, outlawing the use of religious belief as a basis for denying an individual their rights.

Another case could be heard by the SCOTUS with a judgement that overturned this one. Doesn't need different judges, perhaps a slightly different case can force them to overturn.

---

Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

A liberal congress could put forward an amendment further detailing freedom of and from religion, outlawing the use of religious belief as a basis for denying an individual their rights.

Another case could be heard by the SCOTUS with a judgement that overturned this one. Doesn't need different judges, perhaps a slightly different case can force them to overturn.

Right, congress getting anything done, especially something as contentious as adding an amendment to the constitution. That is not going to happen anytime soon. And this SCOTUS changing their own ruling? Yeah, unlikely given the current court's track record. This court also decided that anti abortion protesters should be allowed to essentially harass people visiting an abortion clinic as part as their right to free speech.

Of course they should be allowed to protest wherever they like. That is exactly the kind of freedom that should be protected along with the freedom to access contraception through healthcare.

---

Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

Of course they should be allowed to protest wherever they like. That is exactly the kind of freedom that should be protected along with the freedom to access contraception through healthcare.

You clearly don't know how those people protest. Its not just yelling slogans while standing in front of the clinic, its actually more like trying to intimidate people and prevent them from getting into those clinics. Having an abortion is I recon not the most pleasant experience for a lot of women, and these people only make it worse by intimidating everyone who wants to get in. Those clinics even need special bodyguards to protect the people that want to get in and get them safely through the protesters.

Some of them even go as far as to film everyone who arrives at the clinic and what the number plates of their cars are.

No, the American anti-abortion movement has become so extreme in a number of circles they can only be described as terrorists. Fire bombing clinics, murdering abortion doctors, etc.

No, the American anti-abortion movement has become so extreme in a number of circles they can only be described as terrorists. Fire bombing clinics, murdering abortion doctors, etc.

Just saw this gruesome video on fb:(( Someone was holding an embryo in his hand, maybe 2 months old. You could see it moving, it was alive... just horrible, almost made me throw up...

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

No, the American anti-abortion movement has become so extreme in a number of circles they can only be described as terrorists. Fire bombing clinics, murdering abortion doctors, etc.

You are describing the word "religion"

---

This will need to be over-turned.

That would take a constitutional amendment and that's not going to happen. Why do you people take such an interest in what US are doing? We don't care what you people do.

---

This will need to be over-turned.

That would take a constitutional amendment and that's not going to happen. Why do you people take such an interest in what US are doing? We don't care what you people do.

Yeah, right...

---

rOZZ
Music
Pictures

Because your country is so completely ridiculous it is impossible to look away. Not unlike watching a car crash.

---

Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

You clearly don't know how those people protest. Its not just yelling slogans while standing in front of the clinic, its actually more like trying to intimidate people and prevent them from getting into those clinics. Having an abortion is I recon not the most pleasant experience for a lot of women, and these people only make it worse by intimidating everyone who wants to get in. Those clinics even need special bodyguards to protect the people that want to get in and get them safely through the protesters.

Some of them even go as far as to film everyone who arrives at the clinic and what the number plates of their cars are.

No, the American anti-abortion movement has become so extreme in a number of circles they can only be described as terrorists. Fire bombing clinics, murdering abortion doctors, etc.

Actually I have had some experience with protesters on this issue in Canada. Though obviously I can't put myself in the shoes of a patient.

My point is that there is a protected right to protest.

Any other criminal activity such as unauthorised surveillance, assault, bombing etc should be dealt with as hate crimes.

---

Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...