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Is There a “Right” to Birth Control? (what the administration really wants)
Crisis Magazine ^
| March 27, 2014
| Joe Hargrave
Posted on 03/27/2014 5:42:37 AM PDT by NYer
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday from opposing legal counsel on the HHS contraception mandate cases. The media consensus appears to be that the justices were hard on the mandate and appear likely to issue a narrow ruling exempting closely-held corporations, which both of the plaintiffs are, while leaving open the question of whether or not publicly-traded corporations have First Amendment rights. The distinction is relevant since closely-held corporations are directly operated by their owners and are fairly limited in the number of shareholders they typically have, while public corporations have hundreds or thousands of shareholders. The smaller the group of ultimate decision-makers, the stronger the case that a corporation can in fact exercise religion.
Of course conservative Catholics and Protestants, along with other members of our society that value natural law morality and individual liberty, are hoping that the court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. A victory on First Amendment grounds would certainly allay widespread concerns that religious liberty in the United States is at deaths door. Elane Photographys case, which may also be heard by the Supreme Court this year, would certainly benefit from a Supreme Court ruling establishing the religious rights of businesses. There would be cause for relaxed breathing, if not jubilation, should a tide of court rulings firmly put the brakes on the progressive juggernaut smashing its way through traditional America via the lower courtsespecially after the Supreme Courts ruling on DOMA and Californias Proposition 8 (though in fairness, the ruling was not devastating for social conservatism).
My celebration will be muted and limited, however, because a legal victory will not address the underlying philosophical and cultural divide that brought this case before the court to begin with. Contrary to what some may believe, law is not the foundation upon which society rests; it is rather the adhesive we use to patch up broken pieces of society. The more laws, precedents, mandates, rulings and decisions we require to defend our basic interests and assert our rights, the greater indication we have of a society that is almost literally tearing itself apart.
One can look to many flashpoints in the conflict between conservative America and modern liberal America, but the most severe clash arguably takes place over the meaning and nature of rights. While illiberal Catholics believe that the logic of American liberalism makes things like contraception mandates inevitable, those of us more sympathetic to the tradition of classical liberalism know that we are seeing something radically new develop on the cultural left that may borrow the language of liberalism but betrays its essence. In the Lockean-Jeffersonian tradition of the United States, natural rights are inalienable and God-given; they are also corollaries to natural laws, duties and obligations. The Lockean right to private property exists because of the natural laws obligating the preservation of ones self and ones household. The rights of which Jefferson wrote were self-evident and God-given, requiring no council of judges to determine. Government in both accounts is called into existence for the purpose of defending rights that already exist in nature, and not for the purpose of creating them. Thus there is no natural and inalienable right to contraception (or abortion, or euthanasia, or gay marriage for that matter). The people through their political assemblies may create laws allowing for any of these practices, but it does not follow that they have created anything more than a temporary legal right to such things. A new political assembly could rescind such laws without any injury to a fundamental right recognized in our founding documents and philosophical tradition. This, among others, is a distinction between natural and human laws.
Turning to the present, it seems obvious that most Catholics accept that the United States cannot and will not outlaw contraception. While we would not proclaim or defend a right to contraception, we would not expect the federal or even state governments to restrict or abolish its production, sale or use. Such a demand, no matter how morally justifiable on the principles of traditional natural law, would be politically irrational and untenable. As far as the vast majority of faithful Catholics are concerned, legal contraception is a fact of modern life, accepted by the vast majority of Protestants and of course our growing secular component (Im not opposed to intellectually challenging this status quo, of course). If Americans want to purchase and use birth control with their own money, so be it.
This was not enough for the American left. Though it is an absolute fact that no woman in the United States is, or would be in the absence of the mandate, legally prohibited from purchasing contraception, the left is ceaseless in its deceptive rhetoric which implies the opposite. They speak of the Supreme Court potentially abolishing the right to contraception; Obama himself has repeatedly framed the issue as one of employers wanting to control their employees. How can one respond to and engage with lies and/or misconceptions of this magnitude? Justice Scalias question to Theodore Olson during the oral arguments against DOMA/Prop.8 applies here: when did women paying for their own birth control become a violation of their Constitutional or natural rights?
What the administration really wants is what the collectivists on the left have always wanted: total parity in income between male and female employees, a goal that cannot be achieved in their view without birth control. It is an implicit acknowledgment that the wage gap between men and women is not the result of a mythical patriarchy, but rather due to the biological differences between men and women that often cause the latter to work less and therefore earn significantly less than men. Conversely, the less often women are suddenly pregnant, the more money they can earn. The government has taken this up as its compelling interest in its defense of the mandate (see p. 59 of the 10th Circuits ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby, for example)
It doesnt take a scholar of American political thought to see that this collectivist agenda has nothing in common with the individualism inherent in classical liberalisms take on natural law. If as illiberals might contend conservative Catholics are forced to use the language of individualism to defend themselves whether they like it or not, the modern left is equally compelled to use it to cloak its radically collectivist aims. Womens liberationalong with racial identity politicshas never been about individual choice or freedom, which is irrelevant to a collectivist; it is about structuring society in such a way that statistical measures of success and achievement in all areas of life will be approximately equal among various groups. Any gap larger than the statistical margin of error between two groups such as men and women in any relevant area, such as income, is automatic evidence of institutional discrimination and oppressionand heaven and Earth must be moved until that gap is eliminated, even if it means the eradication of the individuals right to free religious exercise, private property, and moral conscience. Call it what you will, but dont call it liberalism.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: constitution; courts; law; liberalism; parity; scotus
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1
posted on
03/27/2014 5:42:37 AM PDT
by
NYer
To: Tax-chick; GregB; Berlin_Freeper; SumProVita; narses; bboop; SevenofNine; Ronaldus Magnus; tiki; ...
2
posted on
03/27/2014 5:43:00 AM PDT
by
NYer
("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
To: BuckeyeTexan
Of possible interest to your list, ping.
3
posted on
03/27/2014 5:43:35 AM PDT
by
NYer
("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
To: NYer
The Left, as they’re wont to do, is desperately trying to destroy the true meaning of the word “right.” They want to bastardize the idea of “rights” to mean anything that someone might want to have.
A “right” is something that cannot be taken away. The fact that they have to go through the courts to try to codify this garbage is indicative of this not being a “right” in any way. It can be taken away.
4
posted on
03/27/2014 5:46:14 AM PDT
by
rarestia
(It's time to water the Tree of Liberty.)
To: NYer
If there’s supposedly a “right” to birth control, a “right” to choose (abortion), a “right” to marriage (other than a man and woman), then the 2nd Amendment should be a Right to keep and bear any kind of firearm anywhere in the USA.
5
posted on
03/27/2014 5:56:56 AM PDT
by
DTogo
(High time to bring back The Sons of Liberty !!)
To: DTogo
Further, it appears that the Left is trying to redefine a “right” as something that is furnished free by the gov’t or an employer. Does that mean that our right to bear arms necessitates “free” firearms for all?
6
posted on
03/27/2014 5:59:24 AM PDT
by
rightwingintelligentsia
(Democrats: The perfect party for the helpless and stupid, and those who would rule over them.)
To: NYer
This is the MO of liberals; create phony "rights" like the right to free health care, the right to gay marriage, the right to kill an unborn child...
And then dismantle the genuine rights outlined in the USC; the RKBA, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from illegal searches etc.
Once the process is complete you will find that we have no rights and that we have become, in fact, subjects of a tyranny that knows no bounds.
7
posted on
03/27/2014 6:06:39 AM PDT
by
Pietro
To: NYer
The People who told us to,
"Stay OUT of our Bedrooms!"
Are now demanding that we pay for what takes place there.
8
posted on
03/27/2014 6:16:46 AM PDT
by
Falcon4.0
To: NYer
Sure.
diabetics have the right to free foot massages to promote blood flow, saving there feet.
High BP and heart patients have a right to free healthy food and a personal chef to cook it properly.
I have a right to be picked up in an armored car and delivered to work safely.
Sure, lets all make a wish list
9
posted on
03/27/2014 6:17:00 AM PDT
by
12th_Monkey
(One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
To: NYer
The “poor” have every right to spend $10-15 a month of money confiscated from producers on birth control if they wish- nobody’s stopping them. Two packs of smokes less will be good for them!
10
posted on
03/27/2014 6:36:36 AM PDT
by
JimRed
(Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
To: NYer
"Rights" that are only made possible because of prevailing medical technology are not rights at all. Women in third-world countries such as those in Africa or southeast Asia cannot claim a "right " to birth control because they don't have an infrastructure to support it. They can't claim to have a "right" to abort a baby, because medically, they don't have access to such procedures. They can certainly use more primitive methods of course, but we all know the dangers of that.
Our Constitution and the rights it enumerates is not based on having a certain level of medical knowledge, nor does it impose rights to some at the expense of others. All the "rights" that the left demands does just the opposite.
11
posted on
03/27/2014 6:45:28 AM PDT
by
Lou L
(Health "insurance" is NOT the same as health "care")
To: DTogo
If theres supposedly a right to birth control, a right to choose (abortion), a right to marriage (other than a man and woman), then the 2nd Amendment should be a Right to keep and bear any kind of firearm anywhere in the USA. No, it goes further. If you follow the logic of the left then the government should have to PAY for your right to bear arms. Therefore I should be getting compensated for that nice H&K I just purchased.
12
posted on
03/27/2014 6:47:28 AM PDT
by
Straight Vermonter
(Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
To: NYer; Salvation
13
posted on
03/27/2014 7:05:48 AM PDT
by
GreyFriar
( Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
To: 12th_Monkey; NYer; zot
Since I have both diabetes and high BP, I think your recommendation makes sense. I shall be writing my Congress Critters (Mikulski, Cardin, Hoyer, & Edwards) immediately asking them to get with Princess Pelosi and Dirty Harry to sponsor and enact that legislation immediately.
Don’t worry, I’m joking about writting them, but only out of fear they would do it. I know I can safely write them about my conservative positions with the knowledge that those will never, ever be considered.
14
posted on
03/27/2014 7:10:54 AM PDT
by
GreyFriar
( Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
To: rarestia
You are articulating the difference between rights and entitlements. Free speech is a right, healthcare, education and retirement fund would be entitlements, if they were funded by others and provided for free. (Whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing for the greater society is a separate question.) But it does appear that the left wants to cloud the issue between rights and entitlements.
On a separate note, having an entitlement of birth control is entirely meaningless without, first, an entitlement to sex. I demand universal access to cute, nubile females, provided for free. If, and only if, the birth control expenses exceed my ability to pay, then and only then should we start talking about any entitlements to birth control. But please: first things first!
15
posted on
03/27/2014 7:13:15 AM PDT
by
coloradan
(The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
To: NYer
There is absolutely nothing blocking people from getting birth control. NOTHING This whole FUBAR situation is an argument that Sandra Fluck has to pay for her own birth control.
To: NYer
The way I see it, there’s a right to be able to buy and use birth control - but there’s no right to force me or anyone else to pay for it.
17
posted on
03/27/2014 7:55:23 AM PDT
by
RonF
To: rarestia
Indeed - that’s what they’re wanting to do, get it accepted as axiomatic that the government is the grantor of rights,
and therefore can ungrant those rights when “necessary”.
The other part of this, the deeper part, is their visceral hatred of Christian morality. Whenever they encounter it, they attempt to destroy it.
18
posted on
03/27/2014 7:57:14 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
To: RonF
The way the left sees it - if you’re unable to afford a “right”, then that “right” has been denied you.
19
posted on
03/27/2014 7:58:11 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
To: NYer
There is no “Right” to Birth control. The Lord in Genesis blesses the couple and instructs them to go forth and multiply.
He doesn’t say go forth and kill.
20
posted on
03/27/2014 8:17:37 AM PDT
by
Salvation
("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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