Compelling Interests and Contraception

On the eve of Griswold v. Connecticut’s fiftieth anniversary, employers are bringing challenges under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to federal laws requiring them to include contraception in the health insurance benefits that they offer their employees. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, five Justices asserted that the government has compelling interests in ensuring employees access to contraception, but did not discuss those interests in any detail. In what follows, we clarify those interests by connecting discussion in the Hobby Lobby opinions and the federal government’s briefs to related cases on compelling interests and individual rights in the areas of race and sex equality. The government’s compelling interests, we argue, are best understood from within two horizons: they encompass not only core concerns of the community in promoting public health and facilitating women’s integration in the workplace, but also crucial concerns of the employees who are the intended beneficiaries of federal law’s contraceptive coverage requirement—interests that sound in bodily integrity, personal autonomy, and equal citizenship. Further, as we show, a full accounting of the government’s compelling interests attends both to their material and expressive dimensions. This more comprehensive account of the government’s compelling interests in providing employees access to contraception matters both in political debate and in RFRA litigation as courts determine whether the government has pursued its interests by the least restrictive means. The more comprehensive account offered here is less susceptible to compromise and tradeoffs than is an account focused only on material interests in public health and contraceptive cost

Contraception as a Sex Equality Right

Challenges to federal law requiring insurance coverage of contraception are occurring on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut. It is a good time to reflect on the values served by protecting women’s access to contraception. In 1965, the Court ruled in Griswold that a law criminalizing the use of contraception violated the privacy of the marriage relationship. Griswold offered women the most significant constitutional protection since the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, constitutional protection as important as the cases prohibiting sex discrimination that the Court would decide in the next decade—perhaps even more so. Griswold is conventionally understood to have secured liberty for women. But the right to contraception also secures equality for women, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw clearly in the 1970s and as the Court eventually would explain in Planned Parenthood v. Casey

The Right’s Reasons: Constitutional Conflict and the Spread of Woman-Protective Anti-Abortion Argument

The Lecture offers a provisional first account of the rise and spread of WPAA. It traces the development of gender-based antiabortion advocacy, examining the rise of post-abortion syndrome (PAS) claims in the Reagan years and the first struggles in the antiabortion movement about whether the right to life is properly justified on the ground of women’s welfare. My story then follows changes in the abortion-harms-women claim, as it is transformed from PAS—a therapeutic and mobilizing discourse initially employed to dissuade women from having abortions and to recruit women to the antiabortion cause—into WPAA, a political discourse forged in the heat of movement conflict that seeks to persuade audiences outside the movement’s ranks in political campaigns and constitutional law. I tell a story in which social movement mobilization, coalition, and conflict each play a role in the evolution and spread of this constitutional argument, in the process forging new and distinctly modern ways to talk about the right to life and the role morality of motherhood in the therapeutic, public health, and political rights idiom of late twentieth-century America

Using an asset-based approach to identify drivers of sustainable rural growth and poverty reduction in Central America : a conceptual framework

The asset-based approach considers links between households'productive, social, and locational assets; the policy, institutional, and risk context; household behavior as expressed in livelihood strategies; and well-being outcomes. For sustainable poverty reducing growth, it is critical to examine household asset portfolios and understand how assets interact with the context to influence the selection of livelihood strategies, which in turn determine well-being. Policy reforms can change the context and income-generating potential of assets. Investments can add new assets or increase the efficiency of existing household assets, and also improve households'risk management capacity to protect assets. After all is said and done, a household's asset portfolio will determine whether growth and poverty reduction can be achieved and sustained over time. The asset-based framework is amendable to different analytical techniques. Siegel suggests combining quantitative and qualitative spatial and household level analyses (and linked spatial and household level analyses) to deepen understanding of the complex relationships between assets, context, livelihood strategies, and well-being outcomes.Municipal Financial Management,Economic Theory&Research,Public Health Promotion,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Municipal Financial Management

Export commodity production and broad-based rural development: coffee and cocoa in the Dominican Republic

An estimated 80,000-100,000 Dominican farmers produce coffee and cocoa, nearly 40 percent of all agricultural producers. The sectors also provide employment for tens of thousands of field laborers and persons employed in linked economic activities. The majority of coffee and cocoa producers are small-scale and most are located in environmentally sensitive watersheds. Recent trends in international commodity markets have challenged the survival of both sectors. Production is characterized by low yields and uneven quality, while periodic hurricanes have contributed to a lackluster and unstable record of output and exports. Despite these conditions, most experts acknowledge the fact that appropriate agro-ecological conditions exist in Dominican Republic for production of high-quality coffee and cocoa. To be competitive and sustainable, some changes must take place in the coffee and cocoa sectors. The objective of this study is to provide an overview of the coffee and cocoa sectors, to identify major problems, and to suggest possible strategies to deal with these problems. The authors conclude that if the objectives of the government are poverty reduction, environmental protection and overall well-being of rural society, it is critical to move beyond a commodity-specific approach to a broader rural development focus on households, regions and environments where coffee and cocoa are currently being grown.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems

An asset-based approach to social risk management : a conceptual framework

There is increasing concern about the vulnerability of poor and near-poor rural households, who have limited capabilities to manage risk and often resort to strategies that can lead to a vicious cycle of poverty. Household-related risk is ususally considered individual or private, but measures to manage risk are actually social or public in nature. Furthermore, various externality issues are associated with household-related risk, such as its links to economic development, poverty reduction, social cohesion, and environmental quality. Hence the need for a holistic approach to risk management, or"social risk management,"which encompasses a broad spectrum of private and public actions. An asset-based approach to social risk management is presented, which provides an integrated approach to considering household, community, and extra-community assets and risk-management strategies. The conceptual framework for social risk management focuses on rural Sub-Saharan Africa. The report concludes with several suggestions on moving from concepts to actions.Health Economics&Finance,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Banking Law,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Central station applications planning activities and supporting studies

The application of photovoltaic technology in central station (utility) power generation plants is considered. A program of data collection and analysis designed to provide additional information about the subset of the utility market that was identified as the initial target for photovoltaic penetration, the oil-dependent utilities (especially muncipals) of the U.S. Sunbelt, is described along with a series of interviews designed to ascertain utility industry opinions about the National Photovoltaic Program as it relates to central station applications

ECONOMIC AND FISCAL IMPACTS OF A RETIREMENT/RECREATION COMMUNITY: A STUDY OF TELLICO VILLAGE, TENNESSEE

Retirement/recreation communities (RRCs) have been promoted as a way for some rural regions to develop their economies. RRCs can have substantial economic impacts (changes in employment and income) and fiscal impacts (changes in local government revenues and costs) on rural communities. Because the magnitude and direction of these impacts are site-specific, assessments of RRCs as a rural development strategy should consider both the economic and fiscal impacts for a given region. This paper presents a case study of the economic and fiscal impacts of Tellico Village on Loudon County, Tennessee.Retirement community, Economic and fiscal impacts, Rural development, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Is export diversification the best way to achieve export growth and stability? A look at three African countries

Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe depend heavily on export earnings from a narrow base of agricultural commodities (coffee, cotton, sugar, tea, and tobacco). This dependence increased between 1961 - 1973 and 1974 - 1987, when international prices for those commodities were declining and unstable. Policymakers concerned with the instability and downward trend in export earnings for the three countries, tend to equate these trends with the countries'narrow export commodity base. They often propose export diversification as an expedient remedy. But the authors found that horizontal diversification would have produced lower export earnings and more instability. Policymakers introducing horizontal diversification must first consider price forecasts, comparative advantage, the economy's changing structure, and the costs of adjustment. Reactions to historical price movements can produce unexpected, undesirable results. A shift during this period from favorable to unfavorable price trends, and shifts in the covariances of deviations from price trends, complicate the design of export diversification policies, especially policies aimed at stabilizing export earnings. Generally, the most effective way to achieve growth and stability in export earnings is to increase and stabilize agricultural production and the volume of exports. The authors analysis shows that different export diversification policies can help fulfill different policy goals.Economic Theory&Research,Airports and Air Services,Achieving Shared Growth,Water Resources Assessment,Crops&Crop Management Systems