Remember when Samuel Alito said that the Hobby Lobby ruling isn’t a big deal? Because at least non-profits can “opt out” of providing birth control by signing a form, and then the insurer can directly cover it instead. Now Alito is saying these opt outs are unconstitutional as well, and the women justices are FURIOUS.
Specifically, the male Supremes (Even, Stephen Breyer, so THANKS for that), have all sided with Wheaton College in granting them an emergency request not to sign the opt out form until their appeal goes through (thus completely denying the women associated with their university any recourse). This is where Sonia Sotomayor’s righteously blistering dissent—which was signed by Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—comes in:
“Let me be absolutely clear: I do not doubt that Wheaton genuinely believes that signing the self-certification form is contrary to its religious beliefs,” Sotomayor wrote. “But thinking one’s religious beliefs are substantially burdened … does not make it so.” She added, “Not every sincerely felt ‘burden’ is a ‘substantial’ one, and it is for courts, not litigants, to identify which are.”
She also adds: “Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word. Not so today.” In the words of my colleague Erin Ryan, the female Supreme Court justices are basically in revolt. Which makes me so proud, especially during this holiday. It also makes me sad that for all the gender progress we’ve made on the Supreme Court, it’s still controlled by sexist, conservative men who not only have no fundamental understanding of how important it is for women to be in control of their own bodies, but are content to erode our autonomy under completely transparent guises of “religious freedom” and “narrowly defining the Constitution.”
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