Supreme Court and the Supremely Divided Decision

Well, ballocks. I was hoping I could avoid anything “controversial” in my posts for the week. Especially with this somehow making it on the blog as my 100^th post. I was hoping something fun, entertaining, or celebratory. Review Korra, Rogue Legacy, and maybe do a character digression. But the Supreme Court had to do a thing and people had to get either elated or indignant about the whole faffy mess. So I suppose I’ll throw my hat into the balancing act that is an abortion/birth control discussion (because that’s what this is going to be about).

Let’s start with WHAT happened for those who don’t keep up with the news. Obamacare has forced the hands of corporations to decide what they’re going to do with insurance plans. Certain companies are founded under religious institutions and/or pious individuals who have elected to have one less feature in their health-plans compared to Obamacare (there may be more, but the one we’re discussing is the important one). The feature being dropped is birth control coverage. Meaning that the company (the one which prompted the discussion was Hobby Lobby) doesn’t WANT to pay for birth control in their health plan because it goes against their religion. There are other companies who fall into this category as well. As such, the Supreme Court decided that companies were well within their right to do this today… in an official capacity.

I’ve never seen such a fervent response to a Supreme Court decision, not in a while anyway. So what are my thoughts on this? Well…

When it comes to the whole pro-life/pro-choice argument, I tend to take a rather neutral stance with the logic in mind that the woman should be the one to ultimately make that call because it’s their body. HOWEVER, barring the circumstances of rape or endangerment to the mother, I’m rather against the use of abortion because that makes it an expensive form of birth control. An expensive form that the mother doesn’t even have to pay for because government institutions will do it for her. Meaning, yes, my hard earned tax money is going to pay for people to have sex, get pregnant, and then ignore those consequences rather than actually USE birth control or cut out their reproductive bits to keep it from being a problem.

And, no, I don’t like that. I don’t like the idea of irresponsible people pushing that cost on people who may disagree with the idea of birth control/abortion from the get-go. I’m against people wasting my tax dollars when I would rather have that go to schools to improve education or to roads to fix the potholes. If you can’t remember to use birth control on your own, why the fuck should I be held responsible for removing the baby you’re now saddled with? If you really don’t want it and can’t afford to abort it yourself, you can do that revolutionary thing people used to do and put it up for ADOPTION (another A-word, but with far less weight to it).

This brings me to the current controversy at hand. Should companies be forced to pay for your birth control (not abortions) but condoms, pills, etc. And the answer for me is still no. Again, it’s YOUR body (ladies) and YOUR decision to have sex and YOUR decision to use birth control or not. Why the fuck should a faceless corporation be forced to foot the bill for you? I don’t like companies or the government screwing people over, but clearly this is not the case. This is just people complaining because they can’t get freebies from an entity that has no rhyme or reason to be handing out any freebies.

It’d be the equivalent of… say… a parent taking money out of your checking or savings account. You might very well know they’re doing it and they’ve informed you prior that while some money might go to something you owe them for anyway, the rest is being invested “in your interest”. But then you come to find out that they’ve been taking a good chunk of that money and buying drugs to get high or pay EA to continue being a shit game company or paying Sony to fuck up Spiderman more. And then you have to make an active decision. Do you really want your money being spent on these things? Do I want my money going to pay for someone else to rip their unborn baby out of the gut rather than just have them pay for their own bloody pills and their own blood condoms? No. Of course not. It’s a waste and it takes away any sense of responsibility on their end to take care of their own body and make their own reasonable decisions.

I've seen a few seemingly strong arguments against corporations being able to say "no" to contraception as being part of the health plan. The first being that it puts corporations above people. It makes it so that corporations who aren't people have more say than actual people. But people seemed to have overlooked the fact that corporations as a whole aren't a person, but they are run by people, owned by people, and generally used to service people with goods and/or services. People are very much a part of the corporation and by taking money from the pocket of the corporations to pay for something that people can pay for themselves without issue takes money that could go into the pocket of the people working there from the lowest paid person all the way to the top. You complain about wanting more money without realizing it will raise the cost of the goods/services provided. And now you complain about companies being unwilling to shell out MORE money for something that has nothing to do with the corporation itself. 

The other argument I saw is that making more things consequences free, the more freedom people have to pursue happiness. And that people with less guilt and more happiness are less likely to cause problems. While I can see some logic to that, I don't feel that warrants us removing the repercussions of actions. People make bad decisions and mistakes all the time. If we don't learn that they're bad decisions, we keep making them until things get so far gone we lose the ability to make any real choices (like how my brother and many others wind up in prison). By forcing the burden of responsibility and payment for birth control and abortion (because they are two different things) onto others, you free people from learning about making the right choices. You free people from having to take responsibility for their actions. In exchange, you force that burden and cost onto others. That isn't right in any sense of the word. If I make a mistake, I couldn't live with myself if I knew that someone else had to pay for it and they had nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, can you name anything else in life that's consequence free? If I drink, I get drunk. Depending on what kind of drunk I am, I might do something stupid or dangerous. If I get drunk, I can't drive, and so on. If I choose to go out for food, where do I go? If I get grease shitty food, I make myself less healthy. I have to consider the money it costs to go there, come back, and even get the food. If I play a game, there is no shortage of choices that have consequences, and very few that have none. What I'm saying is LIFE in generally is full of choices and every choices (no matter how insignificant) has a consequence (for good or ill). And the core argument from the opposition here is that we should be able to have sex without consequences. And while I'd love to live in a consequence free world, that doesn't exist. You have sex, YOU take precautions to keep YOURSELF from getting STDs or pregnant. Don't FORCE that choice on the rest of us by making us pay for your inability to weigh your decisions properly. 

Now, let me be perfectly clear. I’m not opposed to birth control or abortion on the whole. They both have their place and purpose in society. What I do know is that I disagree with governments and companies paying for you to use them. I disagree with abortion being used AS birth control instead of for emergency situations. The government is already in a huge financial hole and likely will be forever, so piling on more debt by abusing their government-paid abortions comes off as nothing but deceptive and selfish. Unless it’s a case of rape or the mother’s life is in danger, then abortion really shouldn’t be an option. People should have to live with the consequences of their decisions or lack of good decision making. And the burden to pay to fix their lives to prevent those consequences should, in no way shape or form, fall on the responsibility of me, other tax payers, the government, or a faceless corporation.

Wow… I managed to do that a lot shorter than I had expected…. Um… see ya next time.