TWW: Getting Antsy and ANGRY

Here I am, 9 DPO and I'm starting to get antsy. E asked me the other day when I could start testing, he wanted to know as soon as possible and was hoping it would be soon. I looked it up on my Fertility Friend calendar, as if I haven't been counting the hours, and told him the soonest I could possibly expect a result was Thursday, at 10 DPO, and even that was pretty early. 

According to countdowntopregnancy.com, If I am pregnant, I have a 67% chance of getting a positive and a 33% chance of getting a false negative at 10 DPO. 33% is still a pretty high margin for error so I'm nervous to test with those odds. I think I'd rather wait until at least Friday.

In the meantime, I'm still fuming over SCOTUS and Hobby Lobby. I just can't accept a world in which we legalize gender discrimination and grant corporations personhood. For those thinking it would just be IUDs and the morning after pill that got the shaft, think again:

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling. 

The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of businesses that object to covering all 20 methods of government-approved contraception. […]

The justices also ordered lower courts that ruled in favor of the Obama administration to reconsider those decisions in light of Monday's 5-4 decision." (Source)

I'm so angry. So, so, so angry. And disgusted, and angry all over again. Need an IUD to help prevent cervical cancer? Nope! Need birth control pills to help regulate your hormones? Nope! Got raped? No morning after pill coverage for you! Need birth control because you have a genetic condition that causes half your babies to have horrible defects? Nope, no coverage! DON'T WANT TO GET PREGNANT? NO.  NO COVERAGE FOR YOU.

FUCK America, what the fuck are you thinking?? I don't know how this happened, how we could have such a horrific setback in women's rights. 

If you've got a penis though, don't worry, they've still got your back Hobby Lobby is happy to keep paying for vasectomies and Viagra.

Fuck.

TWW: Disgusted With Our Courts

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, our highest court system recently ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and it's religious right to decide whether female employees should have employer funded access to certain contraceptives.  It is now legal for "religious", closely held, corporations to jeopardize the health of women they employ by denying them access to basic reproductive health benefits if their religious beliefs conflict with a woman's right to contraception as guaranteed by law. As we all know, those dangerous IUDs are likely to climb right out of those women's uteri, kill some babies and attack the executives in their beds. They have to be stopped! All in the name of corporate personhood and Christianity. Disgusting.

I am equally appalled that this ruling was handed down by 5 men, whose decision implies that discriminating against women is not discrimination as long as you do it for religious reasons. And oh yeah, their vasectomies are still covered, so no harm, no foul. The 3 women and 1 man in the dissenting minority filed a dissent outlining not only the violation of women's rights, but the danger that this ruling could be applied to other religious objections:

Justice Ginsburg’s Dissent

"Would the exemption the Court holds RFRA demands for employers with religiously grounded objections to the use of certain contraceptives 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 (Christian Scientists, among others)?"

(Source)

Although the ruling in it's current form specifies that it applies only to contraceptives right now, how is the court system supposed to decide which religious objections should be accommodated and which shouldn't? It's a dangerous, slippery slope.

Nancy Pelosi, the house minority leader and my representative here in California called the ruling an “outrageous step against the rights of America's women." Although only those employed by Hobby Lobby are most immediately effected, it's impossible to know the long lasting consequences. Since The Affordable Care Act in 2010 (ObamaCare) mandated that insurance companies provide a basic health care package including contraceptives, over 70 lawsuits were filed and there are still 48 pending in the courts right now. An estimated 90% of corporations in America are closely-held corporations and together they account for 52% of our workforce. What is to stop them all from filing religious exemption suits to deny their female employees coverage?

I am truly disgusted with our court system right now. How could they do this to women? As someone who already has little control over their reproductive health, it's staggering to me that the courts feel my employers have a right to interfere with my medical decisions.  What about those people who chose contraceptive devices like IUDs for medical reasons? Why should their right to proper health care be superseded by their boss' view on contraceptives? The discrimination is staggering. According to courts and health care system right now, infertility is not a disease for which you should receive coverage and your boss can decide what kind of contraception your insurance should offer. Disgusting.