How the Hobby Lobby Decision Compounds Intimate Partner Abuse
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is an affront to all women’s human rights, but may pose particular challenges for women subjected to two particular forms of intimate partner abuse—economic abuse and reproductive abuse. Huge numbers of women subjected to abuse report that their partners restrict their access to economic resources. Reproductive abuse—which includes denying women access to birth control—is a lesser known but powerful form of abuse. As Alyssa Peterson at the Center for American Progress explains (http://talkpoverty.org/2014/07/03/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-harms-survivors-domestic-violence-low-income-women/), for those women who are denied access to economic resources, an employer’s refusal to cover contraception as part of their insurance plan may mean that those women are unable to access contraception at all. As the Court recognized in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and as Justice Ginsburg began her dissent in Hobby Lobby, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 856 (1992). The Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby will operate to deny some women subjected to both economic and reproductive abuse the rights of full citizenship.