8-justice Supreme Court dodges decision on birth control

[niyad]

8-justice Supreme Court dodges decision on birth control

WASHINGTON (AP) — A short-handed Supreme Court dodged but kept alive a legal challenge Monday from faith-based groups over the Obama administration's rules for cost-free access to birth control. It was the latest sign of justices struggling to find a majority for cases taken up before Justice Antonin Scalia's death.


(1 of 1) Demonstrators react to hearing the Supreme Court's decision on the Hobby Lobby birth control case outside the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court rid itself Monday, May 16, 2016, of a knotty dispute between faith-based groups and the Obama administration over birth control. The court asked lower courts to take another look at the issue in a search for a compromise.
May 16, 2016

The unsigned, unanimous opinion paved a way out of a politically thorny dispute for the eight-member court, which has split twice in 4-4 ties since the conservative jurist's death in February. Yet it hardly settled the matter, even if President Barack Obama said the "practical effect is right now that women will still continue to be able to get contraception."

Deciding nothing but perhaps buying time, the justices asked lower courts to take another look at the issue in search of a compromise. The case concerns the administration's arrangement for sparing faith-based groups from paying the birth control costs of women covered under their health plans.

"The court expresses no view on the merits of the cases," the justices wrote, ending a major confrontation over Obama's health care law with a whimper. The matter almost certainly will not return to the Supreme Court before the 2016 presidential election, and perhaps not until a new justice is confirmed to take Scalia's seat, if at all.

The outcome suggested the court lacked a majority, underscoring the effect of Scalia's absence. And it pointed to the prospect of other cases ending in a tie among the 31 that remain unresolved. For now, the government will be able to continue ensuring that women covered by faith-based groups' health plans have access to cost-free contraceptives. But the groups, which include not-for-profit colleges and charities, won't face fines for not adhering to administration procedures for objecting to birth control benefits.

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https://www.mail.com/scitech/health/4347448-8-justice-supreme-court-dodges-decision-birth-cont.html#.23140-stage-hero1-4

[CTyankee]

1. all the more reason to GOTV in the fall. We need to give special importance to the Senate races

that will be coming up for a full one third of the Senate.

How long do we have to wait til we have full reproductive rights?

[niyad]

2. sadly, from the look of things, not until long after I am dead.

[CTyankee]

3. I wonder how my granddaughters will know to fight if they don't know our stories and those

of the women who lost their lives in this struggle. I think it is important that we share our stories of the pre-Roe days when obtaining an abortion meant risking your life. Luckily, they have many more choices for birth control than I did as a young woman.

[niyad]

4. we must make certain that our voices and our stories are not silenced and buried. It is sad that

the young women of today have no idea in so many cases of what it took to get even as far as we have.

[CTyankee]

6. I fear their complacency more than anything...while I don't want them to go through what so many

of us did pre-Roe, sadly I think they are going to have one helluva fight, particularly if a republican gets in control of the White House...

[niyad]

5. . . .

[Vesper]

7. This is crazy!

We need to push pressure on the Congress to give Obama's nominee a hearing. This is simply nuts!

I can't believe all the internecine craziness when the stakes are so high!

[niyad]

8. the hatred for women, especially under the guise of "concern for" outweighs any other consideration.

[niyad]

9. . . . .