In a move that's tragically unsurprising given our current era of fuckery, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken aim at women's access to birth control as part of employer healthcare plans.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced it will uphold the Trump administration's expansion of Affordable Care Act birth control exemptions to include companies who might claim "religious or moral objections," per the Hill.
When speaking on behalf of the 7-2 majority on Wednesday, Justice Clarence Thomas claimed involved departments had the legal authority to provide these exemptions "for employers with religious and conscientious objections." These same employers, of course, are also typically anti-choice, meaning their inept stance boils down to being both against the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and against abortion.
"The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction," Thomas said on Wednesday, as seen in the full opinion PDF here. "This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections. We accordingly reverse the Third Circuit's judgment and remand with instructions."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who—alongside Sonia Sotomayor—wrote in dissent of the opinion, explained that the move is part of a larger effort to give religious groups full control of the law.
"Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree. … Destructive of the Women's Health Amendment, this Court leaves women workers to fend for themselves, to seek contraceptive coverage from sources other than their employer’s insurer, and, absent another available source of funding, to pay for contraceptive services out of their own pockets," Ginsburg wrote.
The decision has been widely criticized for its obvious cruelty, with some—including Bernie Sanders—noting that it also represents the latest example of why the U.S. healthcare system is in desperate need of a top-to-bottom overhaul:
