GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
This release is online at http://www.gp.org/newsroom/press-releases/details/4/716
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org
Green Party: Supreme Court's Hobby
Lobby ruling should boost the movements for single-payer national health
care and abolition of corporate personhood
• Greens condemn the ruling, which holds that "corporate rights supersede the rights of women"
• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on health care, women's rights, and corporate power
• Green Party 2014 Annual National Meeting in St. Paul, Minn., July 24-27
"Back to Our Roots: People. Planet. Principles."
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party
leaders and candidates strongly condemned the Supreme Court's Burwell v.
Hobby Lobby Stores ruling, and said that the decision should motivate
more people to demand single-payer national health care and abolition of
corporate "personhood."
"The Supreme Court's ruling lays bare the need to
separate health insurance from employment status and exposes the
absurdity of affording corporations the same constitutional rights as
natural persons," said Isa Infante, Green candidate for Governor of
Tennessee (http://www.isainfante.org).
"The ruling grants business corporations the
'religious freedom' to impose the beliefs of owners on the lives of
employees and tamper with their medical care on the basis of the owners'
beliefs. We hope that the anger provoked by the ruling leads people to
join the Green Party's call for Medicare For All and a constitutional
amendment affirming that human beings, not corporations, are persons
entitled to constitutional rights," said Ms. Infante.
The Green Party of the United States supports making
replacing the current for-profit health insurance system (maintained
under the Affordable Care Act) and employer-based coverage with a
single-payer program that establishes quality health care as a basic
human right.
Greens called single-payer more urgently needed in
the wake of the ACA's failure to contain medical costs, projected to
rise 6.8% in 2015 ("well in excess of the rate of inflation"; see http://pnhp.org/blog/2014/06/25/disturbing-pwc-report-on-employer-medical-cost-trends), and a Commonwealth Fund report published June 16 on the high cost and low quality of U.S. health care (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/us-healthcare-most-expensive-and-worst-performing/372828/).
The Green Party also supports passage of an
amendment rescinding the legal status of corporations as persons that
possess the same rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution that
humans enjoy (https://movetoamend.org).
Greens agreed with the widespread criticisms of the
5-4 Hobby Lobby ruling handed down on Monday, including Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg's sharply worded dissenting opinion. The ruling denies
women who don't share their employers' religious beliefs access to
coverage under their health plan for contraception, interfering with the
right of women to make medical decisions for themselves in consultation
with their physicians and placing a financial hardship on many women.
The ruling also applies the First Amendment's
guarantee of religious freedom to for-profit corporations that exist for
nonreligious purposes and that employ and sell its wares to people
regardless of their beliefs.
"Five men on the Supreme Court decided that, not
only do corporations have constitutional rights, but corporate rights
supersede the rights of women," said Amy Balderrama, Green candidate for
Tennessee State Senate, 23rd District (http://balderramaforsenate.org).
"Furthermore, Hobby Lobby has profited from investments in companies
that manufacture the same abortion and contraception products that Hobby
Lobby denies women employees for religious reasons -- a gross hypocrisy
the five justices chose to overlook."
(See "Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy: The Company's
Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers" by Molly Redden,
Mother Jones, April 1, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers)
Although the ruling's scope is limited, it
establishes a dangerous precedent: as Justice Ginsburg noted in her
dissent, it may allow corporations to evade nearly any law that they
claim to be "incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs...
Would the exemption… extend to employers with religiously grounded
objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants
(Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia,
intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims,
Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]… Not much help there for the
lower courts bound by today's decision." (http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Burwell_v_Hobby_Lobby_Stores_Inc_No_13354_and_13356_US_June_30_20#id1169492760194)
See also:
Text of the Supreme Court's Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores ruling, June 30, 2014
National Women's Caucus of the Green Party
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191
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• News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/2012/ballot-access.html
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• Green Papers http://www.greenpapers.net/
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• Facebook page http://www.gp.org/facebook
Green Party 2014 Annual National Meeting in St. Paul, Minn., July 24-27
"Back to Our Roots: People. Planet. Principles."
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Green Shadow Cabinet http://greenshadowcabinet.us
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