>>> a very important question is headed to the supreme court. can a for-profit business claim a religious right to deny you birth control coverage or any other kind of coverage, for that matter? the court announced it will review two cases that reached opposition conclusions on that question. one the citizens united case found the owners of the retail story the hobby lobby may indeed avoid the contraception coverage mandated in the affordable care act due to the owners religious objection to birth control. in a different case involving a mennonite-owned business, the court sided with supporters of the health care law. the white house has already issued a statement, saying no one should be able to dictate decisions to women regarding their bodies. while john boehner says businesses should not be forced to provide services that contradict their faith. the decision the nine justices reach has the potential to not only change our definition of freedom of speech but also undermine our already perpetually threatened national health care law. and joining us now, zerlina maxwell, contributor with one of the best publications in the universe, thegrio. and irin carmon, national reporter, msnbc. theyre both equally awesome. and you are equally wearing blue and look lovely. zerlina, corporations, we know, are people. >> yes. >> who knew -- >> according to the supreme court. >> according to mitt romney and the courts. and apparently now theyre also religious people who can then apply their corporate religious beliefs to the people who work for them. how does that work? >> its really disturbing. i think one of the things i think about is the phrase slippery slope. and i hate to use that phrase, but its appropriate here. this is a slippery slope for your boss, who may or may not be religious, catholic, protestant, whatever, to strip away other rights. so if they are, you know, opposed to the fact that you have hiv, and they have a moral objection, are they now going to be able to say, were not going to cover your hiv medication, or, you know, any other medical things that people need, mental health services, for example. >> transfusions. >> exactly. >> certain religious. >> vaccinations is another. thing is really disturbing and this case sets up a precedent. think progress is setting up reporting on this. its now going to lead to stripping away gay rights, as well. so if your employer has an objection to the fact that youre gay, they can take away benefits to gay couples, using this decision, no matter how the supreme court decides as, you know, the basis for taking away rights. >> i think one of the other questions that people have, too, is whether or not this were to go through. if the supreme court were to say that a business can take or leave the mandate in terms of providing contraception, does it actually undermine the health care law itself? >> right now with the companies that sued, and there are about 43 companies that sued, and in various stages, what theyre asking is to be exempt, just them, from covering contraception. in the process of them asking to be allowed to say that not only do the -- do the owners of the company have religious views, but the owners of the companys views are the same as the company, even though when they incorporated, they became a company and not -- >> right. >> they kind of want to have it both ways. you shield yourself from liability by being a company. >> correct. >> but you then get to pick and choose and say i am a person too. >> so corporations are people, and the people are your clone. >> right. >> and corporations have religious views. >> the religious views of the bosses, not the religious views of the employees. so right now all theyre asking for is they want to be able to opt out. they want to prevent their employees from getting birth control coverage. if the supreme court agrees with the he 10th circuit, they are setting up the precedent that zerlina mentioned, which is basically opting out of these services piece by piece. and that does yiundermine the health care law. lets remember, why do we have this provision in the first place? this is preventive care services. if you make it easy for people to access preventive care, youre going to lower costs down the line. women are going to switch to things like the iud, if theyre interested in doing that. more effective, but more expensive up front forms of birth control. >> that they have to pay for. >> so it does undermine the health care law if vital preventive services that are basic health care for women become harder for more women to access. >> and speaking of the hobby lobby, the most adorably named yet somewhat frightening company in america. i want the to play you a little sound from steve green, who is actually the president of hobby lobby, and he discussed the intersection of his faith and the law with none other than glenn beck. take a listen and i want your response on the other side. >> there is a certain comfort that we have that when things are not in our control, that its in gods control. and in that sense, were in good hands. >> so zerlina, the idea that essentially mr. hobby lobby wants to put the family planning decisions of the women who work for him in gods hands, right? >> exactly. and i think thats really disturbing. i can imagine a scenario where youre on a job interview. say youre a married woman without children and not on birth control. your boss can say are you on birth control and youre probably not going to get hired because the likelihood youre going to have a baby is high. it already happens now to women who are mothers or, you know -- going to have children in the very near future. theyre discriminated against in hiring. thats why we have the wage gap. >> although its illegal. >> its legal illegal, but happens all the time. i see an opening for that to happen. also, i think this impacts men, as well, right? so women not having the freedom to be able to choose whether or not they want to use contraception, impacts whoever they are in a relationship with as well. and i think we should want talk about this as a woman-only problem. this impacts all of us. this impacts families, as well. >> and its a woman-only problem oh, but i always wonder about the political dimension of this for particularly young, unmarried women, one of the sort of lowest turnout voting cohorts, particularly in mid terms. and youre both very young women. is this in the generation of young women who are for the first time discovering that contraception -- not birth control, but contraception is a controversial issue for the religious right and one theyre willing to legislate on. is this something that will spark, finally, young, single women to think more about politics off year? >> i think that it did last year. this started with defunding planned parenthood or attempting to defund planned parenthood in 2011 the moment the tea party got into the house. we did see a tremendous ground swell of young women, particularly young, unmarried women or women of color turning out for president obama in 2012, in part based on this issue. this was an issue that was politically debated throughout 2012, both with the amendment in the senate and the president himself saying governor romney wants employers to be able to decide whether -- what kind of health care their employees get. and is so, you know, we actually saw what the voters think about this. the supreme court may end up superseding what voters thought. but it did motivate younger women and young people in general. so i think its possible that if this does next year, if the supreme court-- these republican judges would be the ones that would strike down this requirement or severely undermine it, i think we could see a real backlash. john boehner thought it was politically wise to come out and say, well, the administration -- this administration policy is wrong and against religious liberty and the supreme court should strike it down. they clearly are operating in a world where birth control is -- >> controversial. >> controversial. >> dwight eisenhower, republican president in the 1950s, said birth control, not the governments business. throwing that into the nerd hopper. thank you so much, appreciate you both being here. and you both look fabulous.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 03:22:46 +0000
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