The Rights of Women (and by extension employees) Part Duos

Get ready for what might become kind of dense. SCOTUS is going to hear a case about birth control and Obamacare: Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby.  First, get all the laughing out now, I know Hobby Lobby, personally I’m much more a Michael’s kind of girl myself…but they have some labor issues too. Actually, you’re going to be hard pressed to find many stores without labor issues.

Amanda Marcotte has a post up over at RawStory on how this case is about a lot more than birth control access for employees, and though I give exactly zero fucks about being “fair and balanced” instead I favor just and accurate, Hobby Lobby’s website for their perspective.

Marcotte asserts that the attack on the birth control mandate by the right wing would be seen by their supporters as an attack on women who do not conform to the rigid roles assigned to them by the right wing. They dress it up as “religious freedom” of course because no one can really say, we hate women and think they should have no rights, unless you’re on the Internet. Marcotte goes onto say that people won’t and don’t think twice about the larger implications of employers being able to “tailor your compensation for you labor to his religious beliefs.”

I disagree in a way. I think this is one of the many intended consequences the corporate run right wing had in mind. First, take a step back and ask yourself, can a business have a religion? Because that is the central question of the SCOTUS case. I say no, because I do not believe corporations/business of any size are people or citizens (coming back to this below). But if businesses can have a religion then can it use that religion to discriminate against its employees?

At think point in the post, Marcotte asks some questions about where this ends just limits on compensation or can they refuse to employ people based on beliefs: can a business refuse to hire women?; if a business believes people of color carry the mark of Cain can they refuse to hire people of color (actually a belief held by some)?; gays?; etc.

If SCOTUS sides with Hobby Lobby it gives employers a huge amount of control to dictate how employers can live their lives. And, while Twitter is amazing and people were going back and forth about the medical ramifications to vaccinations and homeopathic treatments, there is an even darker side to this. Can businesses dictate the decisions people make in their personal lives? We’ve seen Walmart try with the indoctrination videos that Walmart forces their employees being captive audiences to, but if the business decides belonging to a union is idolatry or interferes with tithe (giving a portion of your income to the church)?  Holy hell, what it a business decides to keep 10% of your income and donate it to their church? Also if businesses are people with the right to religion, can it start its own religion?

I know this all sounds crazy, but these are legit questions if Hobby Lobby wins this case. Below is a tweet from Marcotte on Wednesday morning point out that Hobby Lobby’s insurance covered birth control pre-Obamacare, because why not.

A Thing Everyone Should Know: Hobby Lobby insurance used to cover birth control. Then Obamacare became an issue & they pulled coverage.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 27, 2013

Alright, let’s talk citizenship and what that means legally and in practice. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there can be a lot of discussion about what citizenship looks like and how that changes depending on who you are. Often legal and cultural citizenship are pushed together, but for example, citizens pay taxes, but so do undocumented laborers, and that doesn’t mean the latter have legal citizenship or natural born citizens have the right to vote, but many don’t while cultural citizens may not have that right, but want to use it.

If corporations are deemed about to have religious freedoms, what is the impact or expectation of these new citizens in contrast to the already residing citizens? In yesterday’s post I mentioned the troubling effect of fetal personhood on the rights of women; will we see this between corporations and its employees? It is all quite science fictiony to me.

The rights of women

I have progressive men friends who are great, but sometimes I don’t think they get it. It being what it means to be a woman in the US. A good friend of mine posted this article to Facebook, and I’m going to summarize it and then freak out about what this all means for women as SCOTUS prepares to hear a case on birth control and states systematically attempt to pass fetal personhood.

The article was written by Erik Eckholm for the New York Times. Bode Miller, 36, Olympic ski star, met Sara A McKenna, 27, in San Diego last year through a matchmaker (Kelleher International). Shockingly the relationship didn’t last long, but they did get preggers. Now Miller and McKenna are in a custody battle that spans the country. McKenna is attending Columbia University on the G.I. Bill. However, the real issue being debated right now is the rights of pregnant women to make life choices.

McKenna decided to move to New York to attend college, while seven months pregnant. Miller accused her of fleeing to find a sympathetic court, which a New York judge agreed with, essentially saying McKenna absconded with her fetus. Take a minute. This resulted in a California court to grant custody of the now born boy to Miller. However, last week, a five-judge appeals court in New York said McKenna’s basic rights were violated, adding, “Putative fathers have neither the right nor the ability to restrict a pregnant woman from her constitutional protected liberty.”

The appeals court rule New York has jurisdiction. The custody proceedings in New York could place the nine month old back in McKenna’s custody. However, San Diego hasn’t ceded jurisdiction. There is of course the drama around a celebrity custody case and he said/she said aspects. Both parents wanted shared custody, but they obviously have their personal differences.

I’m less interested in this. I’m interested in the rights of a pregnant woman in this political climate. Sarah E. Burns, head of the Reproductive Justice Clinic at the New York University law school, “Especially with current political pressures to recognize separate legal rights for fetuses, there will be increasing calls on the courts to fault a pregnant woman for moving, to restrain women from living their lives because they’re pregnant.”

Miller filed for custody in California after McKenna moved to New York for school. McKenna filed for temporary custody in New York, but was rebuffed, the court says, “While Ms. McKenna ‘did not ‘abduct’ the child, her appropriation of the child while in utero was irresponsible, reprehensible.’”

The New York appeals court rejected the suggestion, “the mother needed to somehow arrange her relocation with the father with whom she had only a brief romantic relationship.”

See what happened there before New York’s appeals court stepped in? A man decided the woman carrying his child couldn’t leave the state, and because she did he was granted custody. So pregnant women aren’t allowed to move freely around the US now? Riddle me this, does this mean a woman who seeks an abortion without informing her partner could be barred from perusing it? How fair does the prevention of women living their lives go? Because while I don’t plan on ever being pregnant, I would not give up caffeine; I can’t deal with migraines and caffeine helps. Of course, that is on the long list of things pregnant women are supposed to purge from their diet. What is a woman starts a new relationship, but the biological father is violent and doesn’t want her moving on? Can he prevent her relocating with another person?

Women less important than the fetus they carry now in most states including that beacon of liberalism California.

I once had a fight with a guy I went to school with about the obligation of women to inform their partners before seeking an abortion. I argued that women have no such obligation, but in most healthy relationships both partners would be informed and share in the decision making process. However, we don’t live in a world where all relationships are healthy instead, some people use pregnancy as a means to control their partners. He argued his DNA gave him the right to his partner’s body because FETUSES ARE PEOPLE TOO, and more so than the incubators we call women. Feel the privilege, and hear the white man speak.

If the California decision holds this will be one more front women have to defend to keep our rights as human beings other people (men) are free to exercise. A fetus doesn’t make a woman less of a human being.

I took a class years ago where we discussed what it meant to be a citizens and how that changes depending on the context. Who gets to be citizens and what does that look like? Citizenship is more than legal citizenship, and those who reside in a society, but are limited in the “rights” they are able to exercise while not being barred from doing so are not citizens. In the US, I don’t think it looks like woman, person of color, or person of a lower socioeconomic class. Just because they haven’t taken our rights yet doesn’t mean these rights are becoming more and more elusive to us.  To be perfectly honest, this is all very The Handmaid’s Tale to me, which I write cheekily.

Steubenville Rape Case continues

Remember back when Attorney General Mike DeWine said he was going to investigate those involved in covering up the Steubenville rape? Well, he did. Charges were filed against four adults on Monday. Those indicted include the school superintendent, two educators, and an assistant football coach.

Superintendent Michael McVey was the only one charged on Monday with felonies, which were a count of tampering with evidence and two counts of obstructing justice. He’s charged with two misdemeanors, which were making a false statement and obstructing official business. One teacher and a second elementary school teacher were charged with failure to report abuse or neglect of a child. The volunteer assistant Steubenville football coach, Matt Belardine was charged with four misdemeanors including allowing underage drinking, obstructing official business, making a false statement, and contributing to the delinquency of a child.

Back in October, William Rhinaman, the director of technology for Steubenville City Schools, with tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, and obstructing official business and perjury. If convicted Rhinaman could serve four years, which is longer than either of the two boys convicted: Ma’lik Richmond and Trenton Mays.

It is something that DeWine is moving to indict others involved in the cover up and exploitation of the victim, but we’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.

Payday loans are a bad idea, and the government is finally getting wise to it

*slow clap* That isn’t even entirely sarcastic, because anytime the government learns something is a good day.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Peter Eavis had a piece on service members and payday loans, which I read on Friday. Payday loans are loans for small amounts to “get you through till payday,” but often these small loans have ridiculous interest rates and fees. This results in people taking loans on small amounts, but then are unable to pay the loans back and meet their own basic needs. It is a scam and the exploitation of poor people. But of course, we’re talking about it because it must be impacting some group other than poor women of color, oh service and former service members, that explains it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not beating up on military service. I remain completely pro-military service members by being anti-war. That said, the US seems to take notice when service members are impacted (as long as there are current service members, see the VA for further evidence of just how much we don’t care about military service members after they are done).

So in 2006, Congress got wise that payday lenders are preying on the military service members, and they passed a law, yes kids, once upon a time, Congress passed laws. The law meant to protect service members from loans tied to the borrower’s next paycheck and from the double digit interest rates that can push customers further into debt. But remember lenders are banks so this law did very little.

The law has a bunch of holes and enables payday lenders to prey on service people. Essentially, the law didn’t anticipate just how wild payday loans would become. These short-term loans aren’t covered by the law’s interest rate cap of 36%, which means there are loans out there with interest rates higher than 36%.

The article then discusses military service people and why debt is a threat to national security, oddly or maybe not so oddly the article doesn’t spend much time talking about why service members are easy targets (low-wages, poor healthcare after service, etc). The predatory lenders (not going to be diplomatic on this one) argue that these loans are an asset to the borrowers who can’t have traditional banking services.

Service people have made up a large portion of the young and inexperienced borrowers for a long time. Additionally, how military pay works enables the lenders to skim their fees before the money hits the borrower’s account. Now, they are employing a warning to make service members from taking out these loans instead of actually regulating the industry because nothing works better than blaming people for the predatory actions of others (rape culture allusion). Of course, lenders are clever and they using “official-sounding” company names and imagery of military personnel. Also, it is hard to ignore how accessible these loans are…and if you’re in need they seem like the only option.

Anyone who knows me knows there is a lengthy list of things I loathe, and on that list right below daylaobr/temp work and right above check cashing places are payday loans.