Maggie Jo Buchanan: Anti-choice efforts to divide women

  For decades, anti-choice politicians have sought to erode women’s reproductive rights by structuring legislation in a way that allows some women to access comprehensive reproductive care, while blocking others from doing so. These efforts implicitly divide women into distinct groups in order to help many opponents of choice advance their ultimate goal of ending access for every woman in an incremental, more politically palatable manner.

  Two cases that went before the U.S. Supreme Court this past term—Zubik v. Burwell and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt—also demonstrate the anti-choice movement’s systematic efforts to divide women into groups and limit each group’s rights step by step.

Carolyn Davis: Advancing progressive religious liberty in 2016

  On March 23, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court took up Zubik v. Burwell. Supreme Court justices once again heard from those challenging the employer contraceptive coverage mandate in the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. The plaintiffs argue that the law violates their religious freedoms, even though the ACA allows them to avoid actually providing the insurance if they fill out a simple form. Zubik is an example of cynical efforts by extreme conservatives to exploit religion as a smokescreen for policies that discriminate and endanger the rights of Americans everywhere. It is a version of religious freedom that allows certain religious beliefs to trump the rights of others, cause harm, and allow one group to impose their religion on another. This bears little resemblance to the liberty our country’s founders intended.