As was to be expected, the Hobby Lobby case was just the beginning. The infamous verdict by the US Supreme Court in that case that for-profit companies need not comply with the Obamacare provisions that their health insurance companies cover birth control if they have religious objections laid the groundwork for further conservative assaults on women’s health and reproductive rights.



The District of Columbia passed the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act (RHNDA) that protects D.C. employees from discrimination in the workplace based on their personal reproductive health care decisions such as whether to use birth control or fertility treatments, whether to terminate a pregnancy, or whether to start a family while unmarried.

But under the peculiar system that exists, the US Congress has 30 days during which they can disapprove laws enacted by the District of Columbia. On April 30, the US House of Representatives passed a bill H.J. Res. 43 that overturns that local law. 225 Republicans and 3 Democrats voted in favor of this appalling bill. It thus allows an employer in DC to fire anyone who makes any one of those decisions

The bill now goes to the senate. If it passes there I expect it to be vetoed by president Obama. It does not seem likely that there are enough votes to override the veto but the very fact that this awful bill passed the House is a sign of how anti-women’s rights the Republican party is.