This was a terrible, horrible, lousy day, brought to you by our 5-4 Supreme Court decisions in the Hobby Lobby case and Harris v Quinn. My response: Keep your hands off my body…and my union!

The cases in short:

• Hobby Lobby: Agreed a private firm could claim a religious belief on the part of the firm as a basis for denying several kinds of contraception in the company’s health insurance coverage.
• Harris: Determined that some public sector workers could opt out completely of union fees as well as dues, even as they benefit from the union contract.

Off my body: Amanda Marcotte writes about the Hobby Lobby decision at RH Reality Check: “Hobby Lobby is Part of a Greater War on Contraception.” Though there are all those qualifiers to the decision even in my short description above, Marcotte says, “Make no mistake: they are coming for your birth control.” At Salon Elias Isquith offers highlights from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “fiery dissent” including, “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage.”

The focus on birth control–nothing else–is just creepy, and it still shocks me when I read people saying “why should we pay for your sex?” Comments on FB and twitter have been flying. Sociologist Jennifer Reich–who just published Reproduction and Society: An Interdisciplinary Reader-–said

Never in my life did I think the Supreme Court would rule in such a blatantly politicized way. Religion only applies to birth control, not other health issues other people might need and that others might resent. Having said that and now reading the decision–and spending all my waking hours thinking about vaccination mandates and personal beliefs–it is also clear the government was mistaken in ever allowing any organizations to exercise a religion-based opt-out. If health is a right, who you work for should never have been the criteria for getting what you need. Such a disheartening morning.

Off my union: Jennifer’s outrage over whose rights are asserted (businesses) and are not asserted (workers) brings me to the Harris decision. The Harris v Quinn case  (as Nick Bunker explains here) “centered on the ability of unions to require workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to pay fees to the union.” The decision, which abrogates those fees, may lead to even more decline than we have already seen in unionization.

Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld have shown how the historic decline in unions contributes to the rise in inequality since the 1970s. Public sector unions–I’m a proud member of one–have not declined as much as private sector unions, and this is relevant because the Harris case pertains to public sector unions. Meanwhile, a greater proportion of  women are in public sector unions than private sector unions. CEPR’s Nicole Woo wrote here last week that strong  unions are good for women…and good for families, too. Her column covers her recent paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which highlights just how valuable and important unions are to women. Weak unions are bad for many (and in many ways), but for today I’m thinking about how a decision weakening unions, especially public sector unions, is a blow to women workers.

A really bad day. Not nice at all.