On today's U.S. Supreme Court decision, and how to make somewhat it less shitty.
I can't say I'm surprised at today's US Supreme Court ruling. Pissed, but not surprised, given how non-human persons have been treated in recent years.
Here's a couple bits of advice if you want to be useful in a time like this:
1) Donate to Planned Parenthood and similar organizations. They will probably be the best bet to provide for those who just lost a specific type of health care. They are quite likely the ONLY source for many of them. https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_Nondirected_OneTimeGift
2) Don't get your information from HuffPo, Jezebel, talk radio or FW: fw: re: re: FW: re: emails. Read the actual ruling yourself, it's only 95 pages long, most of which are background and filler. It can be found here. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/supreme-court-decision-on-affordable-care-act-contraception-mandate/1131/
3) And finally, learn to live with this. The high court has spoken, and that is where these issues go to die. Don't torture yourself with petitions or angry letters to Congress or donating to political action groups that pledge to somehow fix this. They can't. The only way to overrule the US Supreme Court is to get them to do it themselves (unlikely, until a few of them die off), or amend the Constitution (info on how to do that is here. As you can see, it's just not plausible): http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html
3b) As for trying to pressure the companies into not being dicks, this case is much, much broader than just Hobby Lobby. Nearly 90% of all businesses in this country count as "closely held," and thus qualify for the religious exemption (http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/30/a-lot-of-people-could-be-affected-by-the-supreme-courts-birth-control-decision/) Trying to lobby each of these companies is a task even Sisyphus would call unproductive. Let it go.
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That's my advice from my admittedly very privileged position. Donate to PP, read the decision directly, and otherwise let it go.
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There is one other option many people bring up: lobbying for government-funded birth control. Which, in theory. Could work to protect those who will be hardest hit by this ruling. Here's why you should let it go:
1) Geography. The places that have local governments most open to this concept likely have businesses least likely to be puritanical dickwads. Persuading the Portland city council will do fuck-all for vulnerable people in Amarillo, TX. Saving a dozen people here at the expense of thousands of people elsewhere is just wrong-headed. Planned Parenthood, being a national organization, is not as hindered by this.
2) Cost. The cost of 50 state-by-state campaigns (or even just the 38 states needed to amend the Constitution in one scenario) dwarfs the cost of just paying for the medical care outright through donations. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to make an either/or call, but we live in an often-shitty world, and some financial triage is necessary.
3) Time. Planned Parenthood (and similar agencies) can put your cash to work today. Even assuming the highly unlikely event of success in a national activism campaign on this issue, an uphill battle against every southern congressmember, teabagger and religious whack-job activist in the country would take years. Some people don't have years.
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The only thing worse than losing a battle is to keep losing it over and over again. Sanity did not prevail today, but perhaps our pocketbooks can. This is the battle you can win. This is the good you can do. This is how you, specifically, can help.
Here, again, is that donation link so you can help some scared and vulnerable people whom you will never meet and who will never thank you, and you are a fucking rock star for donating anyway. We don’t need recognition; we need to help.
https://secure.ppaction.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=pp_ppol_Nondirected_OneTimeGift
-Dave