When does a corporation become human? At conception?

[pokerfan]

When does a corporation become human? Does it happen at conception, when the articles of incorporation are filed? Is it when the final member joins the Board of Directors or when they make the final change to the bylaws? The day they go public? Or does it happen when five out of nine Supreme Court justices decide that an obscure piece of the Constitution could be interpreted to mean that corporations are, and have always been, basically human in their function? Since the Citizens United decision in 2010, this absurd idea has become legal reality with effects that empowered the U.S. oligarchy to run rampant with no meaningful consequences.

As of this morning, the situation is even more strange. The Supreme Court defended the religious freedom of employers to deny birth control as part of their health benefits offered. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in her dissent, “The exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities.” She is consistent and correct in noting that a corporation is an artificial legal entity. It does not breathe, eat, reproduce or get sick. One would hope that this point wouldn’t require clarification, but this is a world where a CEO’s imaginary friend’s feelings just became more important than my health, your health, and the health of your daughters, wives, sisters and friends.

All laws are a fiction to some extent. They are written by people in an attempt to give structure to the unpredictability and danger of life, but often backfire and eventually, as is true in this case, become so detached from real reality that they’re rendered meaningless. Sure, the federal government will likely adjust to provide the contraceptive coverage that’s been exempted from these few companies, but the point here is less about the specific instance of absurdity and more about the size of the pile of absurdity it’s landed on.

The decision also highlights one of the main issues with large scale indirect governance. Power is shared equally within the power structure regardless of expertise, background or understanding. Predictably, the majority who supported this decision are all men. Once again, men make decisions about women’s bodies and health from the comfortable distance of legal abstraction in the same way that the overwhelmingly wealthy seem to find it easy to cut so-called entitlements for the working poor while also destroying opportunities to leave those programs.

Read the rest: How the Supreme Court put corporate rights above your health

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

1. You see, Pokerfan...

When a Mommy Corporation and a Daddy Corporation love each other VERY MUCH. God gives them a little Baby Corporation of their own to love and raise.

Edit: To be a little more serious about a serious question, we need to take back the House. There is not one damned thing that will be done to end this travesty until we either get Democratic control, or the Tea Party finally wears out its welcome in the GOP and the adults can take their party back.

I don't see much chance of the GOP kicking the Tea Party to the curb. So I think it's more reasonable to assume that Democrats -- possibly with some defections from the last of the centrist Republicans -- will be able to cobble together a majority.

It won't be pretty and it won't be perfect, but Citizen's United is the Plessy v. Ferguson of the 21st century. It's got to go.

[cantbeserious]

2. And As The Baby Corporation Grows, It Goes To SCOTUS For Vaccinations

eom

[pokerfan]

3. You're a corporation the moment dad came!

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. I think I got some "quarterly dividend" on the pillow case (nt)

[Fred Sanders]

5. Every sperm is sacred, the Hob Lob case is about four post fertilization contraceptives?

"The Green family has no moral objection to the use of 16 of 20 preventive contraceptives required in the mandate, and Hobby Lobby will continue its longstanding practice of covering these preventive contraceptives for its employees. However, the Green family cannot provide or pay for four potentially life-threatening drugs and devices. These drugs include Plan B and Ella, the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill. Covering these drugs and devices would violate their deeply held religious belief that life begins at the moment of conception, when an egg is fertilized."

The decision may be narrower than it appears, and I am not so sure a real Pandora's Box has been opened.

[enough]

6. Beautiful. (nt)

[davidpdx]

7. My only question is...

WHERE IS THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?

[Ikonoklast]

9. Articles Of Incorporation. Checkmate.

If Henry Ford was still alive, he could have a pogrom of his very own throughout his company.

[davidpdx]

11. Damn you got me there

[UTUSN]

8. DUzy !1 nT

[valerief]

10. But it doesn't become human. It's a person. Humans aren't persons. Now. nt