Letters: Corporations vs. contraception

Re “Birth control cases head to Supreme Court,” Nov. 27

Individuals incorporate their businesses, in part, to be afforded certain shields against individual liability. Those corporations are by definition separate from the individual owners.

In taking advantage of a corporate shield and its benefits, as Hobby Lobby has, it seems that the individuals relinquish the right to assert that the corporation is an extension of their personal beliefs while using that same corporation as a shield against personal liability.

You can’t have it both ways.

Julia Springer

Summerland, Calif.

It is correct to say that corporations are not people and should not be entitled to protections related to religious liberty. But that doesn’t go far enough.

Because corporations are not people, they should not have the 1st Amendment right of free speech. The Times, part of a corporation, should not be allowed to print articles critical of the government. If it does, it may be subject to having its property confiscated without trial, since corporations are not entitled to the 5th Amendment right to due process of law. For a second failure, a summary revocation of the corporate charter and a ban on all corporate activities, the equivalent of summary execution, would be called for.

Those pesky little rights that allow The Times to publish belong to people, not corporations.

David Goodwin

Los Angeles

Healthcare’s not broccoli; one is a delivery system for medical treatment, the other is a vegetable. Corporations aren’t people; they are legal constructs formed on paper to facilitate properly regulated commerce.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not four raccoons in a black trash bag (per Stephen Colbert), but his inappropriate comparisons lead him to disastrously blockheaded legal arguments that end up causing chaos.

No corporation has the right to nullify rules regarding healthcare and contraception, election campaign funding or any other matter that has not been specifically identified and exempted by Congress, by claiming “personhood.”

Conservatives who argue otherwise can’t tell a hawk from a handsaw.

Linda Kranen

Carlsbad

If men instead of women were primarily responsible for contraception, there would be no Supreme Court case to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate. Many plans that don’t cover contraception pay for Viagra, yet contraception for women must be decided by the highest court in the land.

Whose religious rights, whose freedom, whose pursuit of happiness is being infringed?

June Bailey

Rancho Mirage

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