After the SCOTUS decision regarding Hobby Lobby and birth control, the world has gone mad with speculation. But what does the decision really mean for healthcare, birth control, women and corporations? Special guest Greg Lipper, Senior Litigation Counsel for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, joins journalists Melanie Berliet and Kayt Sukel to discuss the case--and separate legal fact from fiction.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:00 PM
Hello!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:00 PM
We have a special guest today--Gregory Lipper
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:00 PM
You can see him in the comments section--with a red M denoting his special moderator status.
Melanie Berliet · 5:00 PM
Hello hello!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:01 PM
Welcome, Greg! Thanks so much for coming and answering our questions!
Melanie Berliet · 5:01 PM
Yes, thank you so much!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:01 PM
For those of you who don't know Greg--and you should follow him on Twitter as @theglipper--he's a senior litigator with Americans United: https://www.au.org/about/people/gregory-lipper
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:02 PM
And what does he have to do with Hobby Lobby? Well, he authored our Supreme Court amicus brief, on behalf of nearly thirty faith groups, defending employees' access to affordable contraception in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:02 PM
Greg, to start, what inspired that amicus brief?
Melanie Berliet · 5:02 PM
He's going to help us sort out the legal aspects of the Hobby Lobby situation
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:03 PM
Why so inconsistent?
Melanie Berliet · 5:04 PM
A question I had is: How can a legal entity like a corporation even have religious beliefs?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:05 PM
Yes, aren't corporations protected by a sort of legal veil so their personal stuff is separate from the business stuff?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:05 PM
(Rather the owners of the corporations are separate from the business itself).
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:05 PM
That seems pretty inconsistent with the SCOTUS decision.
Melanie Berliet · 5:05 PM
The corporate veil! Which exists because otherwise no one would invest in businesses for fear of losing their personal assets, from my understanding
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:06 PM
Were you surprised by the SCOTUS ruling?
Melanie Berliet · 5:06 PM
What if the owners didn't all agree on their religious beliefs? What if there was a "black sheep" within the Green family who believed in contraception?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:07 PM
Were you surprised that the female justices, especially Ruth Bader-Ginsberg (the notorious RBD!), have been so publicly outspoken about the decision?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:08 PM
I can't remember a time when dissenting justices, outside their published opinion, went so public with their disagreement.
Melanie Berliet · 5:08 PM
Here's the Notorious RBG in an interview with Katie Couric: http://bit.ly/1nslNbP
Melanie Berliet · 5:08 PM
she actually claimed that her fellow justices had "a blind spot"!
Melanie Berliet · 5:09 PM
Interesting.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:09 PM
So, I suppose, the big question, for everyone, is what does this mean? Is this just the banning of four unapproved birth control methods? Or does this have more to it?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:09 PM
How will this be used as precedent in the future?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:10 PM
So I know this came up a lot while we were waiting on the decision: Hobby Lobby invests in companies that make the offending birth control methods. Why didn't that violate their belief claim?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:10 PM
The other medical care thing scares me: because so many people believe health is strongly tied to morality.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:11 PM
Good people don't get mental illness!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:11 PM
So how do you determine sincerity?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:11 PM
What is a sincere belief?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:11 PM
And how do you judge that without really getting in the muck?
Melanie Berliet · 5:12 PM
And what is the judicial test for "sincerely held beliefs"?
Melanie Berliet · 5:12 PM
going to church? praying daily? just sort of having an opinion?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:12 PM
(If, as a Jewish person who owns a closely held corporation, I don't believe in pork products but don't keep kosher...)
Melanie Berliet · 5:12 PM
but how does a court determine whether your beliefs are genuine?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:13 PM
That seems pretty squishy.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:13 PM
True. People should be able to have their own beliefs. I agree with that.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:14 PM
I just don't quite get what happened to the ol' "your rights end where mine begin."
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:14 PM
Why is Hobby Lobby's sincere belief against these four forms of birth control more important than my sincerely held belief that I don't want to have a baby?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:14 PM
Or my right to make safe, sane medical decisions with my doctor, not my employer?
Melanie Berliet · 5:15 PM
And any decision limiting access to cost-free contraception will likely increase the number nof unintended pregnancies and thus the number of abortions
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:15 PM
You talked about how other religious corporations might use Hobby Lobby. And the justices kind of pooh-poohed that (well, the majority folks).
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:15 PM
Are any cases coming up that may extend Hobby Lobby to other medical care?
Melanie Berliet · 5:16 PM
Might Hobby Lobby opt out of paying for men's Viagra prescriptions and vasectomies???
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:17 PM
What's interesting to me is that Justice Alito specifically talked about other medical care in his opinion--and said it shouldn't be extended to other medical care.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:17 PM
Beliefs only mattered with birth control.
Melanie Berliet · 5:17 PM
Right. It's so rude! As RBG said "Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny"
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:18 PM
How can SCOTUS defend such medical/belief kind of cherry-picking?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:18 PM
Beyond "junior varsity healthcare"?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:18 PM
It's open for the next case...that's a little scary.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:19 PM
Tell us more about that exception and why what is important.
Melanie Berliet · 5:19 PM
This former Hobby Lobby employee says the "pro-family" company discriminated against her b/c she was pregnant http://bit.ly/1pCDEOG. What I found interesting is that Hobby Lobby mandates that its employees sign a contract promising not to sue them.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:19 PM
Because aren't people fighting that exception? They don't want the work-around.
Melanie Berliet · 5:19 PM
Is that typical of corporations?
Melanie Berliet · 5:20 PM
Interesting. They seem to be covering up their tracks quite well with that. I'm sure for a lot of employees getting hired trumps the potential ramification of signing that contract.
Melanie Berliet · 5:20 PM
It seems exploitative to me
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:20 PM
It's not easy to get a job these days. You take what you can get.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:21 PM
So, is there any recourse here?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:21 PM
Is this decision forever binding? Or could it be challenged?
Melanie Berliet · 5:22 PM
I liked the point RBG made that dissenting opinions can become the letter of the law. EG, the dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, the landmark case upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:22 PM
Will Congress amend it to make it clear?
Melanie Berliet · 5:22 PM
RBG said she HOPES her 35-page dissenting opinion will one day be the law, but that she suspects she will not be alive to see that day
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:22 PM
That's an understatement.
Melanie Berliet · 5:23 PM
Seriously.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:23 PM
It makes me wonder what's so damn scary about birth control.
Melanie Berliet · 5:23 PM
Filibustering is such a ridiculous thing.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:23 PM
Study after study shows that it is personally, economically and socially prudent to give women access to safe birth control.
Melanie Berliet · 5:23 PM
IT MEANS WE'RE HAVING SEX!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:24 PM
Not to mention, often medically necessary.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:24 PM
So our uteruses are collateral damage against the ACA?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:24 PM
And maybe abortion laws?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:24 PM
I remember the "Uncle Sugar" comment!
Melanie Berliet · 5:25 PM
Right. There's the issue of women who have BC prescription for endometriosis and also just horrible period pain
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:25 PM
Political opportunism that can and will have some really expensive consequences.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:25 PM
For women, for families and for kids.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:26 PM
So what are the best ways for women, who don't work for Hobby Lobby, to combat this kind of political opportunism and nonsense?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:26 PM
I could make a joke, Greg, about how many of those guys often don't need birth control because they are having sex with young men but...
Melanie Berliet · 5:26 PM
How many companies are likely to institute policies like Hobby Lobby's?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:27 PM
I'm still not sure what's wrong with consequence-free sex.
Melanie Berliet · 5:27 PM
I read that over 90 percent of all businesses in the United States are closely held corporations like Hobby Lobby
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:28 PM
And some, like Eden foods, are asking for a full block of all birth control.
Melanie Berliet · 5:28 PM
I liked an analogy RBG made: if you think of your arm as a barometer, you can exercise your right to freedom of speech right until the point at which you hit someone else in the nose with that arm. the same should be true of religious freedoms.
Melanie Berliet · 5:29 PM
What were his objections rooted in, then?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:29 PM
But will that interview be entered as evidence?
Melanie Berliet · 5:30 PM
Interesting
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:31 PM
Right--something I earn right along with my paycheck.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:31 PM
But if it is a closely held religious belief...
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:31 PM
Why is that important?
Melanie Berliet · 5:31 PM
How much do you think the sex of the justices came into play here?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:31 PM
I mean, which decision rules? Hobby Lobby or the previous ones that were denied?
Melanie Berliet · 5:32 PM
Here's a synopsis I enjoyed about the SCOTU ruling: "a decision about what kind of access a woman can have regarding their personal reproductive health was made by five dudes with penises on behalf of more dudes with penises"
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:33 PM
So many have suggested that this decision was also rooted to trying to ban abortion outright.
Melanie Berliet · 5:33 PM
I'm also wondering what other biblical principles Hobby Lobby might like to enforce. According to their website Hobby Lobby claims to run its company “in a manner consistent with biblical principles.”
Melanie Berliet · 5:34 PM
Are they going to mandate that adulterers be stoned?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:34 PM
To give more legal precedent to what is an "abortifacient".
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:35 PM
Here's the question: given that this country was founded on religious freedom, why is this particular faction so much more important than the rest of people with different beliefs?
Melanie Berliet · 5:35 PM
"I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners," Ginsburg told Couric. "On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don't share that belief."
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:36 PM
So what would use suggest women say to people who say Hobby Lobby doesn't matter, that they should be ashamed to ask their employer to pay for their consequence-free sex?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:37 PM
Greg, that is actually quite perfect.
Melanie Berliet · 5:37 PM
yeah, the problem seems to be this separation of birth control from regular medical care in the minds of some
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:38 PM
Not to mention Viagra--why should men have consquence-free erections?
Melanie Berliet · 5:38 PM
people just love to couple sex with morality.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:38 PM
Again, though, birth control isn't just about sex.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:38 PM
It's a huge part of women's health.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:39 PM
We talk about a woman's right to choose. Might we have done better with Roe v. Wade if we talk about rights, but just about medical privacy?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:39 PM
If we didn't talk about rights, rather, but limit it to medical privacy.
Melanie Berliet · 5:39 PM
maybe it's because Viagra increases the likelihood that dudes can impregnate all the women denied birth control
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:39 PM
Medical decisions between a woman and her physician.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:39 PM
So what would be a better frame?
Melanie Berliet · 5:40 PM
Can you elaborate on the problem with "right to choose" as an ineffective frame?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:40 PM
We are running out of time here. So, to sum up, how would you characterize the aftermath, Greg?
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:41 PM
You say you think it will shake out. How so? And how long?!
Melanie Berliet · 5:42 PM
In closing I'd like to point out this terrifying phenomenon: Birth control shaming is now a thing http://bit.ly/1nsqi6d
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
And in response to that, I would like to publicly affirm that I use birth control so I can have sex without getting pregnant. No endometriosis, no cramps. Just sex.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
In any case, thank you to Greg Lipper for joining us!
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
You've answered a lot of great questions.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
And I hope you are right about it all shaking out.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
Thanks for joining us!
Melanie Berliet · 5:43 PM
Since I can't end on the BC shaming note, here is a smart piece via Medium, aptly titled 5 Reasons That The Hobby Lobby Decision is Bananas: http://bit.ly/1pThoSh
Melanie Berliet · 5:43 PM
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING US, GREG
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:43 PM
And yes, follow him on Twitter at @theglipper. He's awesome.
KS
Kayt Sukel · 5:44 PM
And we'll see you in a few weeks. Thanks for joining us!
Melanie Berliet · 5:44 PM
Thank you times a bazillion. Hopefully you'll join us again down the line:)
Melanie Berliet · 5:44 PM
Yes thank you all. And email us with any idea for future topics: melanie dot berliet at gmail dot come
Melanie Berliet · 5:44 PM
com, not come. whoopsies!