Can Bristol Palin Improve Racial Harmony, Bridge the Partisan Divide, AND Lower Abortion Rates?

Bristol Palin at 2011 book signing for Not Afraid of Life / Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

Could Bristol Palin's second pregnancy outside of wedlock actually result in more than yet another eruption of culture-warring partisan snarkery?  Maybe.

I'm not interested in ranting about conservative Christian hypocrisy.  Plenty of other folks are already doing that, with the predictable churning up of noisy angst on all sides of the debate.

But it seems to me that this turn of events may actually provide an opportunity for some growth and healing across racial, religious, and political lines.  Heck, it could even get us one teeny step closer to an even more precipitous decline in the abortion rate than we're already experiencing. 

Hobby Lobby affects far more than “just four out of 16 contraceptive methods”

A protester in New York City / Womens eNews, CC BY 2.0

Some pundits make too much of the fact that Hobby Lobby owners “only” objected to “a mere four contraceptive methods out of 20” or “just IUDs and morning after pills.”  They cite this fact to support the notion that "the Liberals" are hysterical, fear-mongering, or at the very least, overstating things when it come's to the Supreme Court's decision.  See Matthew Dowd on “This Week” on Sunday, The National Review (“Hobby Lobby Actually Lavishes Contraception Coverage,”) The Weekly Standard (“Hobby Lobby Hysteria,”) and others here, here, and here.

Those folks missed something important: Hobby Lobby wasn't the Court’s only material action related to the Affordable Care Act contraceptive mandate last week. 

The day after issuing the Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court issued a series of summary dispositions in six other cases, ALL of which involved employer and/or corporate objections to ANY form of contraception.  The Court first vacated three decisions where lower courts held these owners/corporations did not have a valid RFRA claim, and directed those courts to reconsider Autocam, Eden Foods, and Gilardi in light of Hobby Lobby.  It then denied cert (refused to review appeals courts’ decisions) in three other cases where lower courts held the owners and/or corporations had valid RFRA claims [Government’s appeals of Gilardi, Newland, and Korte.]