In the late 1960s, two men refused to fulfill their military service obligations. One was a humanist and the other […]
Take Women’s Health Care Out of Employers’ Hands: The Hobby Lobby Problem and the Single-Payer Solution
By Austin McCoy
I was not shocked to learn that the SCOTUS sided in favor of a for-profit corporation over real human beings in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. considering its recent history. The Roberts court strengthened the concept of corporate personhood in the Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission case in 2010, ruling that businesses were entitled to the same right of political speech—spending—as any individual citizen. On Monday, five male Supreme Court justices ruled that “closely-held companies” were patriarchal entities who shared religious identities. The 5-4 decision allows particular employers the right to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement, ultimately leaving women without the ability to buy coverage that includes certain forms of preventive care.
“A singularly intricate situation has developed in Washington”: Some Historical Background on Hobby Lobby
By Lauren MacIvor Thompson
If Progressive Era birth control reformer Mary Ware Dennett hadn’t been cremated in 1947 immediately following her death, she’d be rolling over in her grave today. Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (or Burwell as the decision was handed down) has abruptly called forward again the long legal story of the fight for reproductive rights. Other landmark cases along this path have included Griswold v. Connecticut (1965); Roe v. Wade (1973); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989); Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and somewhat more recently, Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). What’s Dennett got to do with all of this and why does it matter? We have to go back eight-five years ago to examine Dennett’s activism and her legal case, to understand the political background for Hobby Lobby.
The Long and Short of It: Looking Back on the History of Same-Sex Marriage, One Year after Windsor
A year ago June, the United States Supreme Court published its decision in the case of United States v. Windsor, […]
Is Contraception “Health Care”? The Hobby Lobby Case
by Lara Freidenfelds
As we wait for the Supreme Court to render a decision on the Hobby Lobby contraception coverage case, I have been pondering the historical relationship between contraception and health care. Is it obvious that contraception should be considered part of “health care?” And would it be possible to decide that it isn’t, but still make it affordable and available? This case seems, to me, to rest largely on whether we think contraception counts as health care. The justices are wary of an outcome that would allow employers to decline to pay for blood transfusions or routine vaccinations, even if an employer might genuinely have religious reservations about those procedures. Those are clearly health care. Contraception, though, seems different. It is prescribed for healthy people, and it does not cure or prevent disease (at least not directly).
Eirebrushed: Erasing Women from Irish History
By Helen McBride
A new play opened in Dublin this week called Eirebrushed. Written by Brian Merriman, the play tells the story of Elizabeth O’Farrell, whose role as combatant has been quite literally airbrushed out of Irish history and the 1916 Easter Rising. The Easter Rising of 1916 was a significant rebellion against British colonization and, while it ultimately failed, it sparked a series of events that eventually lead to the independence of Ireland (first as the Irish Free State, a dominion of the British Commonwealth, in 1922, and then as the independent Republic of Ireland in 1948). Elizabeth O’Farrell, a midwife and member of Cumann na mBan (the League of Women), has been described as a “fierce Republican” and played a significant role in the rebellion of 1916. O’Farrell actively fought for the independence of Ireland from British colonization before and during the Easter Rising, delivering bulletins and instructions to the rebel outposts around Dublin. As Eirebrushed brings to our attention, her legacy, and those of other women active in the movement, has been diminished in the commemoration of the Easter Rising and its role in sparking the Irish Civil War.
Medicine, Modernity, and the Maternal Body
by Jodi Vandenberg-Daves
When I set out to write a synthesis of the history of motherhood in the U.S. back in 2008, I’d been teaching a course by that name for more than a decade. I didn’t anticipate that as I explored this history, I would soon witness a multi-faceted and partisan assault on reproductive rights. Perhaps this political context was part of the reason I found that, as I dug ever deeper into this scholarship, questions about the modernization of the maternal body and the various political tensions embedded within this process kept bubbling to the surface.
Hip Hop Breaks Silence on Mental Health: Pharoahe Monch’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
By Austin McCoy
While some hip hop artists and groups have addressed the issue of healthy eating, few have tackled mental health. Hip hop’s distant relationship with mental health should not be surprising, as many African Americans have considered issues such as depression, suicide, and other mental and psychiatric ailments taboo. Last month, the suicide of For Brown Girls’ creator and blogger, Karyn Washington, served as a reminder of the enduring silence of African American depression sufferers. Washington’s death provoked conversations among black members of the media about mental health. Coincidentally, rapper Pharoahe Monch released his fourth album—Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—a week after Washington’s passing. In the album, Monch highlights the intersections of the stresses of inner city life, drug use, suicide, and the structural and cultural barriers to pursuing mental health care. PTSD just might serve as the perfect opening to a conversation on African American mental health.
The Gender Trap: The Problem of Raising Boys As Warriors
By Sean Cosgrove
It strikes me as odd that having identified a crisis of masculinity in our young boys that anyone would suggest these same boys should be raised more like ‘warriors’ than they otherwise would have been. And yet, Maggie Dent, a former high school teacher and counsellor, suggested at the beginning of this year that many of the social ills facing young men today—from Sydney’s king-hit culture to lacklustre personal and academic performance—are related to a broader societal problem of strangling the masculinity out of the boy.
Circumcision Debate: Cut the Hyperbole
By Elizabeth Reis
What frustrates me about the circumcision debate is that both sides exaggerate their claims. Maybe this happens with most controversies, but I am particularly attuned to this one because I have been researching the history of circumcision in the United States. A recent article by Brian J. Morris and others in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings overstates the health benefits of circumcision and downplays the risks. They argue that the public health benefits (i.e. reducing sexually transmitted diseases) are so great that circumcision should be mandatory. Mandatory?
