It is hard not to despair.
A woman entering a clinic for personal health care now must wade through potential hordes of obnoxious strangers getting in her face with stuff -- often angry stuff, often misinformed and always unrequested. Where is the right to privacy, to lead one's own life without the interference of obnoxious strangers?
And now, a woman working for Hobby Lobby, or for that matter any other corporation headed by a religious fanatic who believes his employees must submit to his beliefs, can be denied health care coverage for the most basic, most personal reasons: the need to control her own body, to make her own reproductive choices and family decisions.
Following the Supreme Court these days is hazardous to one's health.
But let's hear it for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg read the riot act to the five men -- surprise, surprise, all of them were men -- who dealt this latest blow to the women of America.
Saying that religious freedom demands "accommodation of a for-profit corporation's religious beliefs no matter the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners' religious faith," Ginsburg wrote in her dissent, is likely to wreak havoc. The havoc is only beginning. And only a small part of it will be the suffering of Hobby Lobby employees. No contraceptive coverage, no abortion coverage, no options, and -- because we are not talking about rich people here -- no justice.
One wonders, "Are mandatory burqas next?" Stranger things have happened than corporate CEOs whose religious sensibilities are offended by women's uncovered heads. There are serious concerns that the ruling could lead to other corporations denying coverage for things that bother other religious groups -- blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses, Christians Scientists), psychiatric treatment (Scientologists) for example.
Freedom of religion? Bah, humbug, Ginsburg says in so many words. "(Y)our right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." She might more properly have said, "where the woman's uterus begins;" because indeed the religion-guarding gentlemen are swinging directly at women's guts.
Call it what you will -- religious freedom, protecting the unborn, freedom of expression, social conservatism -- the denial of women's rights will always, eventually run up against the voices of women who will not be denied.
Thanks, Justice Ginsburg.