Why The Hobby Lobby Decision Brings Out The Feminist In Me

The more I think about it, the more the Supreme Court’s decision on the Hobby Lobby case bothers me.

I don’t disagree with the decision, but I don’t like what it reveals about our culture. Case in point, Deroy Murdock listed all the contraceptives that were covered by Hobby Lobby before the decision and that would be covered after the decision.

Here you go –

Male condoms

Female condoms

Diaphragms with spermicide

Sponges with spermicide

Cervical caps with spermicide

Spermicide alone

Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)

Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)

Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)

Contraceptive patches

Contraceptive rings

Progestin injections

Implantable rods

Vasectomies

Female sterilization surgeries

Female sterilization implants

Sixteen. And only two of them are used by men. The other fourteen are a woman’s “responsibility.” [The Supreme Court decision simply backed Hobby Lobby’s decision to not fund the other four included in the HHS mandate which can work as an abortifacient by causing the embryo to not attach to the wall of the uterus, thereby causing this unique human organism – that’s science, not religion – to die.]

If we’re supposed to be dealing in a world of equality, shouldn’t there be a few more types of contraception that apply to men? After all, they’re the ones who are fertile all or most of the time.

Some of the hormonal contraceptives have had fatal effects on women. (Google it.) Makes it seem like women are sort of … disposable.

Every once in a while, a news story will surface about a pill for men. And then it disappears. I think it’s Prof. Janet Smith in her “Contraception, Why Not?” talk who referenced early attempts to create a pill for men, but some of the men in the study suffered…”shrinkage.”

Death v. “shrinkage.” I’ll just leave it at that.

But there is news of a remote controlled birth control computer chip that could be implanted in a woman for up to sixteen years. A remote control could be used to turn it on and off.

Wow. Just wow.

Can we not see the potential for abuse? Does it take a Law & Order SVU episode to see how a woman’s fertility could be controlled by a man – an abusive husband, boyfriend, pimp, trafficker. And so on.

As it was, I didn’t think that contraception empowered women. This list just reminds me of how much women can be burdened with contraception, particularly the responsibility for any child that might be conceived. Maybe the dad can be forced to pay child support, but that’s it.

And, by and large, we as a culture are ok with that.

This is exactly the result of some forms of feminism that concentrate on a woman’s pelvic region.

So much for progress.