NWL Responds to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Ruling

The Supreme Court's disgraceful opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. today underscores the need for an organized and mobilized women's liberation movement.

The Court's all-male majority held that corporations can choose to exclude contraception coverage from their employees' health insurance plans based on religious beliefs.  The court was clear that this exemption applies only to birth control and not to coverage of, for example, blood transfusions or vaccinations, which also commonly violate religious practices.  In other words, the Court created an exception that applies only to women.  We have seen this before in our fight to put the morning-after pill over the counter, when the FDA repeatedly created harmful, arbitrary rules that it had never applied to any other drug.

We will not stand by as five men on the Supreme Court help corporations — predominantly owned by men — institutionalize sexism and call it religious freedom.  We will not stand by as women's self-determination is jeopardized and reproductive healthcare is undercut and marginalized.

99% of women ages 15-44 have relied on contraception to strengthen our families and our lives.  This includes women of different political views and a range of religious beliefs.

We need a stronger feminist movement with deeper unity, greater analysis of our conditions and strategies for how to fight back.

What You Can Do:

1) Go to a feminist meeting and/or become a member or donate to a group, whether it be NWL, NOW or another.  If you are in New York City, take our class this Fall, “Building Women's Liberation Now: Gems from the '60s and Beyond for Radical Feminist Theory and Action Today.”

2) Organize an action at a Hobby Lobby.  Make clear that people who use and benefit from birth control are a powerful majority, and Hobby Lobby's actions have serious consequences.

3) Support the fight for single payer healthcare, which would remove employers from healthcare decision-making altogether.

4) Visit us online, womensliberation.org, follow us on Twitter, @4womenslib, and like us on Facebook, facebook.com/nationalwomensliberation, to learn what we are doing and how you can join us.