prochoice_maryland | Supreme Court Rulings: Buffer Zone and Contraceptive Mandate with some Corporations (Reply)

The Supreme Court has been making horrible decisions lately. Frankly, I hope these decisions bite them and the supporters in the ass.

First one: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that barred protests, counseling and other speech near abortion clinics.

“A painted line on the sidewalk is easy to enforce, but the prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a majority opinion that was joined by the court’s four-member liberal wing.

The law, enacted in 2007, created 35-foot buffer zones around entrances to abortion clinics. State officials said the law was a response to a history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.
What is so hillarious is that the Supreme Court has a huge buffer zone itself. If you ever protested in front of the Supreme Court before, you aren't allowed to be on the steps. You have to be off the steps when you protest. I mean...it has a 35 foot buffer zone that this clinic was trying to get. Yet, I haven't heard any one tried to get this buffer zone in front of the Supreme Court taken down because it violated their freedom of speech.

My SO, who is a secular humanist, said that if WBC can get away with interrupting funerals and these protesters harrassing as well as threatening patients going to these clinics based on free speech...that any athiest can go to a church and protest there too. Frankly, the idea sucks to me as much as the WBC protesting funerals and these protesters wanting to harrass patients, but why not if their freedoms are protected and not an atheist who wants to call religious folk stupid for believing in a God at their church? I have a funny feeling though that will happen eventually where people like these are confronted by that and they can't bitch when they have had that same freedom themselves.

Then the second, more fucked up one (imo): WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. It was, a dissent said, “a decision of startling breadth.”

The 5-to-4 ruling, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws that they claim violate their religious liberty.
I really hope this ruling comes back and bites supporters in the ass. It would suck for these people if they had relatives denied certain medical services like blood transfusions and meds for mental illness because it went against their relatives' employer's beliefs. Worst, if their relative or friend's employer was against any medical intervention. An employer has no place in their employee's health, whether if it's reproductive or general. However, I hope this costs the republicans their power in the House between this election and the one in 2016.