“The widespread use of contraceptives has indeed harmed women physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually — and has, in many respects, reduced her to the ‘mere instrument for the satisfaction of [man’s] own desires.’” It’s hard to believe that anyone actually thinks this, let alone declares it as fact. But this is just one example pulled from the 59 amicus briefs filed in support of Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation arguing for exemption from the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it is an unconstitutional violation of “its” sincerely held religious beliefs.
When I read some of the more ludicrous quotes from the case briefs aloud to my roommate, she had pretty much the same indignant reaction that most rational people have upon hearing statements like, “the promotion of contraceptive services harms not only women, but it harms society in general,” (another gem from the American Freedom Law center). She got frustrated. She asked me to stop reading because she didn’t want to hear anymore. And that was my initial reaction too – I stopped reading in anger, and shook my head in disbelief.
You see, we have a choice. We live in a liberal state where our reproductive freedoms are largely recognized and protected. Yet for far too many women in our country, statements like this are not something they can simply tune out. Such ignorance is the unrelenting and unavoidable reality that they live in.
Where are you from? In Texas, a recent law imposing unreasonably strict regulations has forced dozens of clinics to close. In 2011, 44 facilities in Texas offered abortion care. Recently, that number has been cut in half, and by fall 2014, that number is expected to drop even lower, to a mere six. The entire state of North Dakota has but one clinic that provides abortions, while South Dakota and Mississippi have two. Just last week, a federal court of appeals agreed to let Kansas strip family planning funding from Planned Parenthood. In early March, a medical office that provided abortions in Montana was meticulously destroyed and vandalized by the son of the executive director of the anti-choice group Hope Pregnancy Ministries. That office had only been open for three weeks prior – the owner had been forced to relocate from her previous office after someone purchased the building her office was in. That someone was, somewhat unsurprisingly, none other than the same executive director of Hope Pregnancy Ministries. Some may think, well Roe v. Wade legalized abortion 41 years ago – what is everyone still arguing about? Yet, around the country, our reproductive rights are being stripped away, piece by piece.
It is insane to me that the Hobby Lobby case ever got as far as the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, March 25th, I got a bus down to D.C. with members of JHU’s Voice for Choice group, and other activists from Delaware and Maryland. We joined the protests outside the Supreme Court as the attorneys presented their oral arguments. On the left, many young women and men touted neon colored or plain white cardboard signs with statements like, “My Birth Control My Decision,” and “Don’t Impose Your Beliefs.” Pro-choice activists gathered around a platform where intelligent speakers informed the crowd of what was at stake should Hobby Lobby win its case. On the right, mostly old white guys gathered holding visceral and inaccurate signs such as the one below. One woman from the pro-life side walked through our group of supporters from JHU and Planned Parenthood and kindly informed us that we were all robots and should learn to think for ourselves.
As Jon Stewart recently quipped, "let me get this straight: corporations aren't just people, they're ill-informed people, whose factually incorrect beliefs must be upheld because they sincerely believe them anyway." Lets talk about those beliefs – the 600-store chain of craft stores claims that four of the contraceptives it is required to supply under the Affordable Care Act are actually abortifacients,and thus providing these contraceptives places an undue burden on their – excuse me, their corporation’s – religious beliefs. These four contraceptives are Plan B One-Step, Ella, and two forms of intrauterine devices. None of these contraceptives act after fertilization. The two brands of emergency contraception delay ovulation, and the IUDs thicken cervical mucus to prevent sperm from reaching the egg. Fertilization never occurs. There is nothing to abort. Why are we even entertaining the notion of imposing some sincerely held belief that is factually just plain wrong? What’s next? What if the heads of my corporation are Jehovah’s Witnesses? Will I then be denied access to blood transfusions, on the grounds of their sincerely held religious fictions?
Our campus is no stranger to inaccurate and insensitive displays from pro-lifers. Last fall, Voice for Life’s “Cemetery of the Innocents” stuck 139 crosses in the ground near the MSE Library, which was meant to represent the number of fetuses aborted hourly in the United States (the correct number is actually 121) accompanied by a sign that read “3600 Human Beings Were Aborted Yesterday.” Funnily enough, for all this talk of religious belief and fertilized (or in the Hobby Lobby case, unfertilized) eggs being people, the Bible doesn’t say all that much on the subject. In Genesis, the first human became a “living being” when God blew into its nostrils and it started to breathe. Biblical writers thought that life began when you started breathing. With our modern technology however, we can determine that what one can conceive to be ‘life’ begins sooner than that – a fetus becomes viable no sooner than the 23rd week. This threshold is defined as the point at which the fetus becomes potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb. A passage from Exodus (21:22) actually describes what the penalty would be should a woman suffer a miscarriage as the result of being injured by a man: “if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no [further] injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any [further] injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” Killing the woman would be murder, yet the miscarriage is treated as a property loss.
If we are really going to make an argument about whose rights trump whose, be it a corporations’ rights to religious freedom, a collection of cell’s right to life, or a woman’s right to choose, let’s stick to the facts. Over the past decade in the United States, teen pregnancy rates have been consistently higher in Southern states that fail to provide students with adequate sexual health instruction. Making it more difficult to access contraception will not reduce the rate of pregnancy. Making it more difficult to access safe and legal abortions will not reduce the rate of unintended births, and is sure to result in more unnecessary death for women who are forced to resort to unsafe means. Only education and safe and proper access to education, contraception, and abortion will help women.
A Live Action News article proudly pointed to Voice for Life’s contribution to their cause by stating that the group’s bimonthly harassment outside of Baltimore’s Planned Parenthood clinic has “helped save three babies from abortion” and that they have “even watched one worker quit.” That worker told the group, “You have no idea how much you guys have done with your presence here.” It is unkind, unjust, and downright cruel to impose your personal beliefs on another person’s personal battle. It is never an easy decision. It is sometimes the right decision. But it is always the woman’s decision.
But this isn’t a woman’s issue. If men could get pregnant, birth control would be bacon-flavored and dispensed as freely as condoms. Woman do not get pregnant all by themselves, and they should not be left alone to the task of ensuring their reproductive freedoms remain intact.
Meg O'Connor is a senior writing seminars major from Brooklyn, New York.
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