SCOTUS Can't Stop Making The Slut Pills Case More Complicated

who would deny ladies such a tasty slut pill treat? nuns, that's who.

Remember last week when we read the whole transcript of the "nuns don't want no slut pills" case, aka Zubik v. Burwell , aka Little Sisters of the Poor, and you were very grateful to us for our service to this great nation? Somehow this did not result in our being able to wash our hands of nuns or SCOTUS for any real length of time, because on Tuesday, SCOTUS went "Hey, this term doesn't seem unusual enough, what with Dead Scalia and a bunch of 4-4 decisions coming down the pike, so let's throw another monkey wrench into the mix, shall we?"

Yes, the Supremes decided ​they have more questions about​ the Zubik case, which, if we may take a moment to refresh your memory, involves nuns who are sad that they have to sign a tiny piece of paper that lets someone else make sure ladies get slut pills, because getting free slut pills was guaranteed to us by Socialist Kenyan Muslim Obamacare. The nuns feel this makes them complicit in lady-slut-pill-taking, and that is just not OK.

You will recall that oral arguments got a bit weird, particularly when one of the anti-slut-pills attorneys explained that he'd maybe sorta kinda be fine if the government would just create an all-encompassing ObamaSlutCare plan that would give birth control to ladies automagically without god-fearing Christians needing to sign Satanic pieces of paper. And Justice Alito said that would just be swell, while other people kept having to point out that carrying two entirely different health plans -- one for regular care and one for your slutty lady bits -- is a suboptimal solution. But it may have sparked some thoughts that led to the justices thinking there might be a way to solve this problem.

Tuesday, the Court issued an order asking all the parties to this shitshow to brief SCOTUS on how ... oh god we're just gonna have to cut and paste SCOTUS-speak. Hold on.

The parties are directed to file supplemental briefs that address whether and how contraceptive coverage may be obtained by petitioners’ employees through petitioners’ insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees. [...]

For example, the parties should consider a situation in which petitioners would contract to provide health insurance for their employees, and in the course of obtaining such insurance, inform their insurance company that they do not want their health plan to include contraceptive coverage of the type to which they object on religious grounds. Petitioners would have no legal obligation to provide such contraceptive coverage, would not pay for such coverage, and would not be required to submit any separate notice to their insurer, to the Federal Government, or to their employees. At the same time, petitioners’ insurance company—aware that petitioners are not providing certain contraceptive coverage on religious grounds—would separately notify petitioners’ employees that the insurance company will provide cost-free contraceptive coverage, and that such coverage is not paid for by petitioners and is not provided through petitioners’ health plan.

Let's translate that, because that is many much words. The Court has told both parties to submit additional briefs, because additional briefing before the Supremes isn't simultaneously terrifying, tedious, and unusual AT ALL. In those additional briefs, the parties should figure out a way to get ladies slut pills in a way that doesn't make the nunfolks sad or complicit in any way. The Court goes on to offer a hypothetical, which is basically: "What if you just say you don't want to offer birth control, and someone else takes it from there?"

The more astute among you may be saying "Wait, isn't that exactly what happens now?" HAHA YOU ARE DUMB. Right now, the petitioners (who are the nuns + nun-adjacent types) have to SIGN A PIECE OF PAPER saying they hate ladies, and everything else gets taken care of by someone else from there. But, according to the nuns, the paper is the real root of all evil because it is totally like letting Planned Parenthood build the Abortionplex in their basement. So, in some ways, this order from the Court calls their bluff, because it basically says "Huh, well let's just imagine a world where you don't have to sign that terrible piece of paper but ladies get birth control anyway, which is a thing you said at oral argument last week you might be cool with." This calls out the underlying argument that the Little Sisters of the Poor and their little friends are actually making, which is that birth control is bad and people who use birth control will go to hell and they will try any way possible to thwart people from getting birth control.

The problem with the hypothetical presented by the Court is, of course, that it is sort of impossible to imagine a world where somehow insurance companies just divine the will of religious zealot nutjobs about things like birth control.

In other words, there has to be SOME way that said religious zealot nutjobs would inform the government or the insurance carrier or both that they do not wish for the slut pill plan, nosiree they do not. If not a piece of paper, what? A phone call? Carrier pigeon? Singing telegram? Tap it out in Morse Code? Record a video? Vulcan mind meld? The possibilities are endless, but all equally absurd, because the easiest and best way to tell the gubmint you don't want no slut pills is to sign a piece of paper saying you don't want no slut pills.

All that said, this supplemental order thingy may mean something good for people who want to gobble free birth control pills like candy necklaces: it might mean that glory hound Justice Anthony Kennedy is in play and might be considering, should a compromise solution be found, hopping over with the liberals for a 5-3 decision that preserves the Obamacare birth control mandate, at least for employers like Little Sisters of the Poor. (Remember, fully religious organizations like churches are already exempt from providing slut pills or signing the piece of paper. You work for a church, you're already fucked. This is only for people who work for church-y types who also hate birth control virulently.)

So. Let's say a little secular prayer to Satan or perform a Wiccan dance or whatever we liberal types usually do when we want to get our way that the briefing shows a possible compromise solution or lays so bare the fact that there IS no compromise solution for the nuns that Kennedy hops the fence and joins the liberals. Oh god, that means he'll get to write the opinion, doesn't it? Huge price to pay, but worth it for sweet sweet free slut pills.

[ SCOTUS Supplemental Briefing Order ]