By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 10 years ago

Breaking: Supreme Court will decide if companies can deny their workers contraception coverage because #WWJD?

birth control graphicThe Supreme Court announced it will rule on two cases asking that companies be allowed to deny workers insurance coverage for contraception if it violates the corporation owners’ beliefs. Let’s hope the court prioritizes not violating reproductive rights.

As ThinkProgress writes,

The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will review two challenges by private businesses who claim they are exempt from a federal requirement to include birth control coverage in health insurance. The decision to review two of the challenges, including one by crafts chain Hobby Lobby, means the high court will take on the controversial questions of whether a secular, for-profit corporation can assert a religious objection to a law, and even whether those corporation have religious expression rights under the U.S. Constitution. It also tests the Affordable Care Act’s’s guarantee to provide gender-specific, preventative services at no charge to individuals.

It’s cool, though. Because Hobby Lobby offers its employees free spiritual counseling. Which works better than any contraceptive!

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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