Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Case: Business is People!

Many bloggers have been commenting on the recent Supreme Court ruling on for-profit businesses and the availability of birth control for employees. There are many directions this post could take, and each of those could be an entire post long. In favor of breadth over depth (and in deference to others who have done the details better justice than I could), I will list a few points regarding this ruling.

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I have been abroad for an argumentation conference, so the news of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby came as a NYT update on my phone. At first, I was absolutely shocked, then heartbroken to hear that the ruling was 5-4. I could hear the chanting in my head: Hobby Lobby is people! Hobby Lobby is people! Businesses were given the rights of humans, where a non-human is ascribed the rights guaranteed to citizens and people in American law, while the rights of females are destroyed.

1) This only impacts for-profit businesses: specifically religious non-profits were already exempt from the Obamacare mandate. Now, all businesses and industries can impose religious beliefs despite the nature of the company. One could make the argument that choosing or accepting employment at a religious organization may require adherence with certain religious rules. But, these expectations have now been extending to employment at a Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby or any business that decided birth control was immoral.

2) Pro-choice and pro-reproductive freedom does not mean support for abortion or birth control: I hear the conflation quite frequently that because people are pro-choice that they support abortion or want women to have abortions. Likewise, to be pro-birth control means that all women should always be taken some kind of birth control. The support is for choice. The support is for females as rational, decision-makers to decide for themselves what is best for their own bodies.

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3) Businesses are not people: Though Citizens United and this Supreme Court case have stated otherwise, I firmly argue that businesses are not and cannot be people. People have the freedom of speech, the freedom of religious expression, the freedom to protest, etc. Businesses are non-human, economic networks that are organized around profit. Businesses are made up of people, but a business itself is not capable of free speech, protest, or religious expression. Simply put: how could a business be religious? Do Hobby Lobby stores attend mass? Do they pray? Do they get baptized, confirmed, or search for vocations?

4) Birth control is not just for reproduction regulation: Although this is obviously the most important and contested use, there are other non-reproductive reasons (such as regulating periods and estrogen levels) for the use of birth control. Providing the opportunity for businesses to deny birth control for "moral" reasons also allow for the denial of its purely medical uses. Though I dislike slippery slope arguments, I feel the need here to make a short one. If anything and everything can be subsumed under the idea of "violating religious expression," then anything from wearing a headscarf, getting divorced, wearing a cross, or any "religious whim" could result in firing.

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There will certainly be many subsequent cases that unfold from this important decision. I hope that courts will stop rolling back the rights of females and move away from valuing businesses over actual human beings. This decision was certainly a disappointment for women's rights and the pro-choice movement. It is important, however, to acknowledge that despite the negative consequences of this ruling, people do have reasonable, legitimate reasons for their religious views and how they choose to express them. What is not acceptable is having these personal religious views interfere with and impose on the lives of others.