Senate GOP Blocks Healthcare Access Act

[Content Note: War on agency; misogyny; Christian Supremacy.]

Last week, Congressional Democrats announced they were planning to fight back legislatively against the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision by amending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to stipulate that it does not include a justification to employers to deny employees access to health services guaranteed by federal law.

Democratic Senators Patty Murray (Washington) and Mark Udall (Colorado) quickly introduced the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act in the Senate, and companion legislation was introduced in the House by Democratic Representatives Louise Slaughter (New York), Diana DeGette (Colorado), and Jerry Nadler (New York).

This afternoon, the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act came up for a vote in the Senate—and failed to get the requisite 60 votes it needed to move forward. "Democratic Senators failed to garner Republican support for the legislation, and it was blocked."

Because of course it was.

Let's speak of this plainly: There is no justification, none even being offered, for the denial of contraceptive access via employer-sponsored healthcare plans besides religious belief.

And there is no religious belief being cited besides a very particular strain of conservative Christianity.

This is Christian Supremacy, plain and simple. The government doesn't even need to officially establish a national religion, in order to uphold the preferences of one religious iteration and impose those preferences on all the rest of us.