Lhe Supreme Court of the United States recently approved one of the most controversial reforms of the Donald Trump administration, allowing employers to oppose reimbursement for contraceptives on behalf of “Moral or religious values”.
This July 8 judgment confirms the superiority of religious freedoms over women’s rights. In doing so, it contrasts sharply with the decisions that preceded it, the conclusions of which invalidated several reforms undertaken by the president and his Republican allies.
Pendulum movement
The Supreme Court inflicted numerous setbacks on the American administration in June and July, by reaffirming the rights of sexual minorities in a professional setting on June 15, and by opposing, on June 18, the cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has enabled some 650,000 young undocumented immigrants to lead a peaceful existence since 2012.
The Supreme Court also struck down a Louisiana state law restricting access to abortion on June 29, before recognizing half of Oklahoma’s territories as “Indian reserves”, thus granting them the statute of autonomous jurisdictions in matters of criminal law (July 9). That same day, the sages ruled that New York State prosecutors could access Donald Trump’s accounting records, while preventing Congress from viewing them before the presidential elections in November.
In a peculiar pendulum movement, the Supreme Court made religious freedoms prevail over women’s rights and reproductive justice. In its July 8 decision (Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylania), following a vote opposing Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor to their seven colleagues, the judges authorized the delisting of contraceptives for religious or moral reasons . In doing so, the Court further reduced the scope of the Obamacare (or Affordable Care Act).
Covered through their employer
By virtue of the Contraception Mandate desired by Barack Obama and included in the Affordable Care Act, employers had in fact been required since 2010 to offer their employees insurance covering the costs of contraceptives and screening procedures for certain cancers. This reform has benefited more than 56 million women whose pills and IUDs were previously not reimbursed or poorly reimbursed.
You have 58.77% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
