What a Pro-Abortion Atheist Woman Says about Hobby Lobby
 
What a Pro-Abortion Atheist Woman Says about Hobby Lobby
Written By Laurie Higgins   |   07.11.14
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Read what Shikha Dalmia, the pro-abortion atheist senior analyst for the Reason Foundation (who also happens to be a woman), said about the left’s apoplectic response to the “Hobby Lobby” decision:

The United States Supreme Court last week handed down two rulings that are a victory for the liberties of religion, speech, and association enshrined in the First Amendment. That ought to be cause for a double celebration. But instead, the rulings, issued on the narrowest possible grounds, constitute a victory so modest—and have elicited a response from the left so hysterical—that anyone serious about liberty can’t help but be a little depressed right now.

The case that has attracted disproportionate attention is informally known as Hobby Lobby, and it challenged Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. This mandate requires all for-profit companies to provide all 20 forms of birth control approved by the FDA, including pills and “abortifacients,” even though they violate the Christian (Assembly of God, to be precise) convictions of the owners of Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts chain, who were willing to cover “only” 16.

Let me be clear: I am not some super-religious, anti-abortion, party-line conservative. Quite the contrary: I am a political independent, an atheist, and a supporter of abortion rights. I believe that because the mother’s—and only the mother’s—life is implicated in childbirth, she ought to have the sole and unrestricted right to decide whether to get pregnant or proceed with a pregnancy.

That said, the right to birth control and abortion does not entitle women to force Hobby Lobby to pay for these things any more than Hobby Lobby’s religious liberties entitle it to force women to pay for its speaking-in-tongues gatherings.

Yet instead of simply affirming the owners of Hobby Lobby’s broad constitutional right not to be forced to violate their religious beliefs, the justices ruled in the company’s favor only because not doing so would have violated the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act.

All that the act requires is that before violating someone’s religious liberties, the government demonstrates that it had no other way to achieve its ends….

None of this, however, prevented the left from throwing a collective hissy-fit. Social media erupted into tiresome taunts of fascism. Ann Friedman called the ruling a “blow to reproductive rights” that made her want to issue “an outraged scream, sort of a combination groan-wail…while beating my fists against the desk on either side of my laptop.” (Hey Ann, be careful: A new laptop will cost you several years’ of contraceptive pills. Generic versions sell at Costco for $25 a month.)

Laurie Higgins
Laurie Higgins was the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Affairs Writer in the fall of 2008 through early 2023. Prior to working for the IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years...
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