Hobby Lobby: Birth Control and the Law

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Rachel Port

Birth control activists Margaret Sanger and Fania Mindell inside the Brownsville birth control clinic, circa October 1916

Birth control activists Fania Mindell and Margaret Sanger inside the Brownsville birth control clinic, circa October 1916

In 1964, when I was a 16-year-old college freshman, my Bronx pediatrician asked if I was sexually active, and offered to prescribe birth control whenever I started having sex.

In 1964, his doing so was legal in New York because of a 1918 ruling by Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals, but not in Massachusetts, where I was in school.

Birth control is only legal in this country because of a concerted campaign of civil disobedience carried out by Margaret Sanger and her followers. Here is a brief look at the legal history of birth control in the United States.

In 1917, a judge opined that women did not have “the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.”

In 1873, the Comstock Act was passed into law, making the dissemination of “obscene” material through the mail illegal. Any attempts in the early part of the 20th century to teach about sexuality and the prevention of pregnancy — including Margaret Sanger’s work as well as Mary Ware Dennett’s The Sex Side of Life, which she wrote for her sons when she could not find any adequate literature to assist in educating them — were prosecuted under the Comstock Act.

Margaret Sanger witnessed her mother’s early death after 11 live births and seven miscarriages. Later, as a nurse on New York’s Lower East Side, she witnessed poor women dying from attempting to abort unwanted or dangerous pregnancies. She decided to challenge the Comstock Act. Continue reading →

Voting Rights, Reproductive Rights, and What’s at Stake in Arizona’s Election

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Matt

Photo: Jamelah E.

Perhaps the news site Vox.com said it best when summing up the relevance of the 2014 election. The day news broke of the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Hobby Lobby an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein pointed out that “Supreme Court Justices die unexpectedly and retire strategically, and … the timing of even a single vacancy can end up reshaping American law for decades to come.” Klein went on: “If Republicans take control of the Senate in 2014 then they’ll have substantial veto power over any efforts President Obama might make to fill a vacancy that could reshape the Court.”

This fall’s gubernatorial race will be crucial in securing Arizonans’ reproductive rights.

A decision from the Supreme Court that arrived the prior week, striking down a Massachusetts “buffer zone” law that protected women from intimidation when they sought services at reproductive health clinics, adds even more weight to Klein’s argument.

Much is at stake both in the national election and the state election here in Arizona. Although a major change in the makeup of the legislature is unlikely, the governor’s race makes the 2014 election a critical event. Whatever comes out of the legislature, how Arizona’s next governor uses his or her veto power can mean the difference between Arizona’s continuing notoriety in the War on Women — after already enacting requirements for ultrasounds, waiting periods, and state-directed counseling for abortion patients — or health care policy that upholds reproductive rights.

When Janet Napolitano held the governor’s office from 2003 to 2009, she set a record for the number of vetoes in a single session (58) and in a single term (115), and many of her vetoes kept a conservative legislature from dismantling reproductive health. Continue reading →

Supreme Court Rules Against Women in Hobby Lobby and Buffer Zone Cases

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Stacey S.

Five out of six male Supreme Court justices voted in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right to deny full contraceptive benefits. Their opinion does not represent the entire male population. Photo: NARAL

On the morning of June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court (or should I say the men of the Supreme Court) ruled in favor of two corporations, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, who argued that they should not have to provide insurance coverage for their employees’ birth control, as required by the Affordable Care Act, because of the business owners’ personal religious beliefs.

The court stated that when corporations are “closely held” and it can be shown that the owners operate the business consistently with certain religious beliefs, then these corporations can be exempted from federal laws that burden those religious beliefs.

Emergency contraception and IUDs work primarily by preventing fertilization, and won’t interfere with existing pregnancies.

The “beliefs” in question held by these two corporations concern two forms of birth control — emergency contraception and IUDs (intrauterine devices). But their “beliefs,” that emergency contraception and IUDs are abortifacients, aren’t rooted in actual science.

Here are the details.

Hobby Lobby believes that “life begins at conception.” They define “conception” as the time at which a sperm and egg combine to create a zygote.

The medical community, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), defines conception as the point at which a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. According to ACOG, the term “conception” properly means implantation. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Stacey S.

I’ve spoken about my experiences as a clinic escort and the importance of buffer zones around abortion clinics many times on this blog. We at Planned Parenthood are staunch supporters of buffer zones and believe they’re crucial in protecting our patients from potential harm and harassment. So, imagine our collective dismay yesterday when the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision calling the 35-foot clinic buffer zone in Massachusetts “unconstitutional” on the basis that it violates the First Amendment of those who wish to “counsel” clinic patients. Pretty infuriating to say the least. (Mother Jones)
Will SCOTUS also throw women under the bus in the upcoming Hobby Lobby decision? (RH Reality Check)
Four years ago, Aaron Gouveia and his wife had to make the heartbreaking decision to abort their non-viable, very much wanted child. His story describes how the presence of anti-abortion protesters made the saddest day of their lives exponentially worse. (Time)
President Obama is the first Commander in Chief to help advance transgender rights! (Associated Press)
Women who volunteer in the Peace Corps are now able to receive insurance coverage for abortion (albeit in limited circumstances: rape, incest, or life endangerment). Better to have baby steps than no steps, I guess. (RH Reality Check)
Check out this fascinating piece on the history of sex-ed films shown in schools over the years. (Truth-out)
The headline might sound sensational, but it’s the truth — Abortion Clinics Are Closing Because Their Doors Aren’t Big Enough. (Vice)
The Vatican is aware their teachings on contraception aren’t followed or even highly regarded by most Catholics, but apparently, it’s easier to keep the doctrine stale and irrelevant than to evolve because they’re not likely to make any changes. (Toronto Star)

From Censorship to Insufficiency: Sex Education from the Dennett Trials to Today

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Matt

In an article published the day after her trial, the New York Times described the defendant as a “gray-haired, kindly-looking matron.” When she took the stand in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, the 53-year-old grandmother introduced herself as a maker of decorative wall hangings and an occasional writer for magazines.

Maybe it was a sign of the times that such an unusual defendant could be facing an obscenity charge that spring afternoon in 1929. The decade known as the Roaring Twenties shook established conventions as metropolitan centers like Chicago and New York became the birthplaces of modern cultural movements that pushed old boundaries. Showing disdain for the conservative dress and sexual ethos of the past, women in short hair and short skirts, dubbed flappers, were sensationalized for their cavalier attitudes toward sex. Pushing limits further, homosexuals and gender nonconformists earned nods of recognition in everything from stage productions (Mae West’s The Drag) to popular music (Edgar Leslie and James Monaco’s “Masculine Women, Feminine Men”), benefiting from a level of social acceptance that anticipated the 1960s. Meanwhile, the popularity of jazz challenged racial barriers as black and white musicians collaborated on stage and in studios, and as black and white socialites mixed in lively venues like Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.

Mary Ware Dennett was a pioneer for sex education — both through her writing and the legal battle she fought.

Amid those changes, some people still weren’t ready for the controversial publication Mary Ware Dennett was in court for distributing, even if that publication had been well received by the medical community and, furthermore, had been sent to such tame and respected clients as the Bronxville school system, state public health departments, and various religious and civic organizations like the Union Theological Seminary and the YWCA. The publication was one Dennett had written 11 years earlier for her two sons, then 11 and 14 years old. She wrote it after realizing that, without it, they wouldn’t receive the sex education they needed: “When my children reached the age when I wished to supplement what had been taught verbally, I sought something for them to read.” After searching “some sixty volumes,” Dennett decided to give up and write her own material. Continue reading →