Reproductive Rights Prof Blog

Anti-Family Planning Nurse Sues Family Planning Clinic for Refusing To Hire Her

Gender & Sexuality Law Blog: When Reality Becomes Satire: Anti-Contraception Nurse Sues Family Planning Clinic For Not Hiring Her, by Kara Loewentheil:

And now for an exercise in absurdity: a nurse who refuses to prescribe contraception is suing a family planning clinic because it refused to hire her. It refused to hire her for a very simple reason, which probably seems obvious: It’s a family planning clinic, and she refused to perform family planning services. Rather than take that as a fairly reasonable basis for rejection, and conclude that perhaps she would be happier and of more use in a different context (a crisis pregnancy center, perhaps), the nurse decided to sue the clinic, claiming that it discriminated against her on the basis of her religion. . . .

Marty Lederman on Hobby Lobby Case

Marty Lederman has been writing a lot on the Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood challenges to the ACA contraceptive rule.  Here is his latest post.

Balkinization: Hobby Lobby Part III-A—Does federal law substantially pressure employers to offer health insurance coverage in violation of religious obligations, even though there is no “Employer Mandate”?, by Marty Lederman:

The plaintiffs in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood argue that federal law compels them to act contrary to their religious obligations, by requiring them to offer (and pay for and administer) employee health insurance plans that include contraception coverage. As I explained in my most recent post, that turns out to be a simple misreading of the law:  Although employee plans must include contraception coverage, the Affordable Care Act does not require that employers offer such plans to their employees, nor even impose substantial pressure upon them to do so. . . .

_______________________________________

Earlier posts are here, here, and here.

Eugene Volokh and Marty Lederman on Hobby Lobby

The Volokh Conspiracy: My Hobby Lobby Posts, In a Single Word Document, by Eugene Volokh:

Here are my Hobby Lobby posts in a single Word document, in case some of you might find them helpful.

Balkinization: Hobby Lobby Part One--Framing the Issues, by Marty Lederman:

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court announced that it will consider two related cases involving claims for religious exemptions to what has commonly (but inaccurately) been called the “contraception mandate” under the Affordable Care Act—Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialty Corp. v. Sebelius.  The cases will be consolidated for oral argument, which the Court will almost certainly hear between March 24 and April 2.  The first briefs in the cases will be filed on January 10.  Amicus briefs on both sides are due January 28.

Balkinization: Hobby Lobby Part Two--What's it all About?, by Marty Lederman:

Are the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases about employee health insurance plan coverage of contraception, writ large, or—as the plaintiffs in those two cases would have it—“only” about coverage of “abortifacients,” or about four discrete forms of birth control?  Something less?  Something more?

 

As I'll try to explain in this post, the cases do not, in truth, have anything to do with abortion or “abortifacients” as those terms are generally understood under federal law or in the medical and scientific communities.  Beyond that, however, it is hard to know for certain exactly which forms of birth control are specifically challenged in these two cases.  Nevertheless, what is clear is that the Supreme Court’s decision in these casescould implicate legal requirements imposed upon for-profit employers that reach well beyond any particular birth-control methods—indeed, beyond contraception itself.

Sherry Colb on Analogizing Abortion to the Holocaust

Dorf on Law: The Limits of Analogies, by Sherry F. Colb:

In my Verdict column for this week, I discuss a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision upholding a German court's injunction against the publication by PETA (the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) - Deutschland (PETA-D) of a series of posters that compare the animal cruelty and slaughter of the animal-based food industry to the Holocaust.  In my column, I take up three questions:  (1) Was the PETA campaign strategically wise?, (2) Does comparing nonhuman animal victims to human victims necessarily insult or degrade the status of the humans?, and (3) Might the offense that people take reflect something less noble than an identification with human victims of the Holocaust?

In this post, I want to offer the hypothesis that comparing victims of distinct harms disserves the victims of both harms.  To analyze this hypothesis, let us consider an analogy that members of the pro-life movement sometimes draw, between the Holocaust and abortion. . . .

What the Kermit Gosnell Case Reveals About Social Justice and Access to Abortion

Feministe: On second thought about Kermit Gosnell, by Jill:

 He does tell us a few things about abortion. They just aren’t what William Saletan thinks.

The Gosnell case shows us the worst of what happens when abortion isn’t accessible. Gosnell’s “clinic” was nothing short of a house of horrors, and he preyed upon women who couldn’t get abortions anywhere else or who were unfamiliar with the American medical system — poor women, immigrants, minors. . . .