Shockingly to union supporters, a union can’t force someone taking care of her disabled son to pay union dues for the privilege.
And there’s another blow to ObamaCare’s attempt to run our lives:
The 5-4 decision is a significant victory for those challenging the constitutionality of the President Obama’s health care law. And it strengthens the argument that for-profit entities, like individuals and churches, have religious rights.
So you don’t lose your religious freedom because you make a profit.
Huh.
[Update mid afternoon]
The funniest thing on Twitter today, amidst all the illogic, hatred and hysteria, is the number of people who think that @SCOTUSblog is actually SCOTUS’s blog (and Twitter feed) and attacking them. The @SCOTUSblog folks are having a lot of fun with it.
What religion is Monsanto?
Is Monsanto a closely-held corporation, you moron?
So you support a different standard of law for 2 different corporations?
Seems like an equal protection problem.
Mars Corp is a large family held company, should they be able to launch an Equal Protection
argument now against the HHS?
Another stupid question from the moron.
What religion is Apple, Costco, or the New York Times? While none of these companies are explicitly religious, they all have a corporate culture and ethos which guides their decision making process often time at the expense of profits. Are we to tell Apple that they can not be “green” or Costco that they can’t have generous benefits, or the New York Times that they can’t act as Democrat’s Pravda because as a corporation, they can’t have any values?
Why do Democrats always want to legislate how people should think? In this case, is it because they are bigots?
What a strange comment.
I think Monsanto’s corporate religion is to get a lot of money from the Federal Government. In a smaller, more efficient government, this crony capitalism wouldn’t occur. But your religion of salvation by society approves such wealth transfers as a part of a holy sacrament.
Monsanto refuses to pay for genetically modified birth control?
So you don’t lose your religious freedom because you make a profit. – no, but your employees do.
Did you mean to write something intelligent?
I did say something intelligent, namely, the Supreme Court has now decided that your employer’s religious beliefs trump yours.
How are your religious beliefs violated by having to pay for your own birth control, other than your fascist belief that you can force someone else to violate their religious belief to give you free stuff?
Hobby Lobby used to pay for the contraceptives in question. Now they don’t. They in effect docked their workers’ pay based on religion.
The more important question is how are Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs violated? Their employees do not have to use contraceptives. Hobby Lobby isn’t endorsing contraception, just like paying for Viagra isn’t endorsing sex.
At any rate, please continue to defend this paternalistic view of women’s sexuality. This is exactly the kind of thing that constitutes the Republican Party’s “war on women.”
In other words, you can’t explain your previous stupid comment about the employee’s religious beliefs.
And it’s not at all paternalistic to posit that men folk have to buy contraceptives for women folk because the fairer sex can’t manage tough things like that. No siree Bob.
Rand, liberals and statists see nothing that trumps their claim on endless “free stuff”. And to think, they have the gall to say that anyone who resents ever higher tax burdens are “greedy” for wanting to keep more of their own money. Liberals are the greediest people of all.
“Hobby Lobby used to pay for the contraceptives in question. Now they don’t. ”
Blame Obamacare for dictating what products people have to buy not the victims of that policy.
“The more important question is how are Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs violated? ”
Just because you don’t understand or make the effort to understand a different philosophy doesn’t mean their beliefs are not being violated. Democrats should be the last ones to be allowed to characterize the beliefs of their victims. You guys will just demonize and dehumanize them to excuse your totalitarian tendencies.
“At any rate, please continue to defend this paternalistic view of women’s sexuality.”
No one is trying to ban tampons Chris and no one should be forced to buy tampons if they don’t want to. How can you say this is about fighting the patriarchy when you are arguing for patriarchal action through the use of government dictate?
Too bad atheist libertarian employers can’t cite RFRA for an exemption of the basis of “thou shalt not steal.”
“I did say something intelligent, namely, the Supreme Court has now decided that your employer’s religious beliefs trump yours.”
Explain how. How does the SC ruling result in the employer’s religious beliefs trumping the employees?
Well, don’t know about you, but my Facebook feed is full of women who don’t think whether or not they use birth control is their boss’s business.
If they don’t want it to be their boss’s business, then the simple solution is to not demand that their boss pay for it.
Ya, Chris. Obama created this problem by requiring employers pay for things Democrats ideologically think are important. And because now my premiums subsidize your health care, it is time for you to hit the weights and get in shape. I could really care less normally, but now that I am paying for it, I have an opinion about how you live your life.
I asked Gerrib:
“How does the SC ruling result in the employer’s religious beliefs trumping the employees?”
And Gerrib replied:
“Well, don’t know about you, but my Facebook feed is full of women who don’t think whether or not they use birth control is their boss’s business.”
Astonishingly stupid answer.
1) No one says they can’t use Birth Control. This is the strawman that the Dems are using. They are twisting this into a statement that women are denied BC. They are not.
Regardless of the Boss’s religious beliefs, the women are NOT prevented from using BC.
2) The Boss is completely unaware as to whether or not the employee uses BC. All the Boss knows is that he/she didn’t pay for it, if it was used.
Please don’t demonstrate abject imbecility and try the argument that there are millions of women who cannot pay for it. 9 bucks a month is doable. Abstenstion is doable.
Lastly, like every other problem created by the Obama Tyranny, it wouldn’t even BE a problem if there were jobs. And there would be jobs if the Obama administration wasn’t killing the economy.
Don’t be crazy. If this ruling stands, employers will be hanging out at drugstores to make sure their employees can’t purchase birth control.
That’s a remarkably stupid comment. It might be valid if a corporation required female employees to use birth control against their religious beliefs but that isn’t the case here. Hobby Lobby is saying that some forms of birth control are equivalent to abortion and they shouldn’t have to pay for it. They aren’t threatening to fire employees who use those products, they’re simply refusing to pay for it. The Supreme Court agreed narrowly.
Such tears. My company doesn’t pay my health insurance. Does that mean they’re screwing me? We entered a contract and as such, I don’t expect them to do any more than what we agreed upon.
So you are then a parasite on society, when you get sick and show up at the ER.
No, but you are a parasite on this web site, when you get stupid and show up here.
Lol, hashtag douche.
I buy my own insurance. It used to be cheap, but now it isn’t.
You do understand buying things for yourself, don’t you? Maybe not. You probably think someone owes you a TV.
Buy things himself? Heaven forbid! That’s why he lives in DC, the biggest concentration of parasites in America, if not the known universe.
Are you under the impression that the only way to pay for an ER visit is via insurance or a taxpayer bailout? Interesting.
He also thinks the only way to get health care while uninsured is to go to the ER.
The real problem is the enforced paternal relationship between the individual and their employer.
So, what other employee benefits constitute “enforced paternal relationships?” Paid vacation? 40-hour work week?
All employee benefits should be negotiated between employee and employer. It’s not the government’s damned business, particularly the federal government’s.
well, that is a policy, but, it’s not what we do.
If you wish, you are always welcome to excercise your choice and move somewhere
with less of this.
Indeed, that is why many people are moving to “right to work” states. We are just making sure the Federal Government doesn’t t forget about the agreement we made with them in the Constitution.
“but, it’s not what we do.”
Ya, we know what Democrats do and that is why people are so upset with Obamacare.
“well, that is a policy, but, it’s not what we do.”
And why is that? The United States managed to thrive without the government sticking its nose into and taking a cut out of employee wages for 160 years. Then FDR, in his drive to make the Great Depression last longer and get worse, imposed wage and price controls. Employers responded by offering different health care packages.
For some reason, people keep on refusing to put their own necks in the noose, and keep on responding to the incentives and disincentives that government places in their way.
we tried that during the Gilded Age. The majority of people found themselves getting screwed by the rich, and so they elected politicians to pass laws preventing the screwing.
History – it’s not just for breakfast any more.
Any economic transition has inequality because those who figure out how the new system works make a lot of money.
It is happening now with the information age. You whine about the gilded era, but you don’t whine about Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. Is it because they all fund the democrat party?
The truth, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
“The majority of people found themselves getting screwed by the rich,”
And Obama intends to keep it that way as long as the rich have gained absolution through contributions to Democrats.
“so they elected politicians to pass laws preventing the screwing.”
Except in the case of Obama and the Democrats, the people elected politicians who screw citizens based on their political affiliation.
You must admit though, the Obama Administration did do a bang up job at getting rid of the 40-hour work week.
So this makes how many times that the US Supreme Court has struck down a position taken by the Obama Administration? It’s over a dozen, at least.
Actually, it’s many more. It’s a dozen for 9-0 decisions alone.
Just to nitpick, it’s 13 9-0 decisions since 2012.
Two questions I see related to the Hobby Lobby case:
– Can a man be compelled to support what he sees as a morally objectionable act?
– Can a business be compelled to take an action where an individual in similar circumstances may not?
As I see it the answer to both questions is no.
The SCOTUS decision is much narrower than that. It only applies to closely held corporations, and it only applies to contraception. A corporation with many owners can still be compelled to include contraceptive coverage in its health plans, and a closely held corporation can still be compelled to include coverage for other health services that the owners may consider morally objectionable (e.g. blood transfusions). And of course all the plans on the ACA exchanges cover contraception, so anyone buying insurance there is underwriting such coverage, and anyone paying taxes is underwriting subsidies for such coverage. Indeed, Justice Kennedy noted in his opinion that, rather than requiring private employers to pay for contraceptive coverage, the government could pay for it directly with tax dollars, regardless of the moral qualms of the taxpayers.
Which is all to say that the liberty to abstain from having any of your money go towards buying contraceptives that you find objectionable, a liberty that Hobby Lobby and its co-plaintiffs fought so hard for and are celebrating today, remains illusory. Hobby Lobby’s owners will go on paying for IUDs and morning-after pills, just as pacifists go on paying for nuclear warheads and creationists go on paying for classes that teach evolution. The only thing that’s changed is that American women who get health insurance at work are now divided into two classes, those for whom any form of contraception is covered, and those for whom the range of covered options has been limited by their employer.
Which is better than the two classes your party has foisted on us: those who get free stuff and those who pay for free stuff.
“so anyone buying insurance there is underwriting such coverage, and anyone paying taxes is underwriting subsidies for such coverage.”
That is funny because Obama and the Democrats said that abortion wouldn’t be covered. There was even a famous, “You lie!” incident.
Contraception is not abortion.
Some forms of contraception are.
The ruling covers all forms of contraception. The plaintiffs’ concerns about morning-after pills and IUDs preventing implantation are scientifically unfounded, but the justices ruled that their religious objections didn’t have to be based on science — sincere ignorance is sufficient.
ignorance is sufficient
Good thing. If the company is ignorant about the various forms of contraception, why should they be responsible for providing it?
“The plaintiffs’ concerns about morning-after pills and IUDs preventing implantation are scientifically unfounded”
Uhh, no. There is a long history of debate on this subject and linguistics has been used to change definitions regarding conception, implantation, and when life begins. You can disagree when life begins but science isn’t on your side on this issue. The religious view is that life begins at conception and that ending life after implantation is an abortion. This is why Hobby Lobby previously, and still does, provide many other forms of birth control that act earlier in the process. Science says life begins at conception and nothing about the morality of abortion because science has no morals.
Whatever your positions are for supporting late term abortions, infanticide, or IUD’s, they are not scientific arguments but rather moral and ideological ones.
Support of abortion is another Democrat contradiction because they want to give rights to animals based on their intelligence, social structures, and ability to feel pain/pleasure but don’t extend that same ethos to babies forming in their mother’s wombs. Heck, Democrats wont even allow babies to have the same rights they want to imbue to plants.
Don’t worry, Jim. Conservatives are now using the strategies of the progressives. This is a wedge, and we’ll sue the everliving crap out of everything using this as a precedent.
Don’t think of this as a narrow decision, think of it as the beginning of more religious liberty at the expense of your precious State.
Justice Ginsberg said it better:
“The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
“Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.”
“Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestoga’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults.”
“It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
“Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”
“The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
BS. They can buy their own contraceptives. They can split the cost with their significant other.” If the left hadn’t screwed up the medical insurance industry so much, they might even find a separate plan that pays for abortifacients. (Or maybe those plans do exist – not something I’ve checked into.)
“I have always depended on the subsidies of strangers” may be a mantra of feminism, but it’s not a principle of liberty.
They can buy their own contraceptives.
And their male employees can pay for their own vasectomies. Except they don’t have to — those are covered. Hobby Lobby only has moral objections to contraceptive services for women. Sexism is apparently a principle of liberty.
Okay. Let’s stop forcing employers to pay for vasectomies.
Employers aren’t forced to pay for vasectomies, Hobby Lobby does because it wants to.
“Employers aren’t forced to pay for vasectomies”
Uhh, so the government is forcing companies to buy products for a demographic group that Democrats want to appeal to but also discriminate against against a group who Democrats demonize? And you are calling this a war on women?
But also notice how a vasectomy is a form of birth control that is compliant with a religious objection to abortion and relies on the man not the woman, which when the opposite is the case, is often used as an example of homorapien’s patriarchal war against women.
Contradiction much?
Let’s stop forcing employers to pay non-business-related expenses, period.
“The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
And that’s bullshit. All it denies them is other peoples’ money to pay for it. No employer is going to lie in wait at Walgreens and tackle them if they attempt to buy BC.
“deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
Do you know what the word access means? It looks like you don’t.
“Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. ”
So someone’s tax status determines their belief structure? That is absurd but it explains why Democrats have been going after non-profits and other similar groups. IMO, your beliefs have nothing to do with the taxes you pay and the taxes you pay should have no bearing on what beliefs the government will let you have.
““Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.””
And yet we have protections enshrined in the constitution for religious people. We already make many different exceptions for many different religions. It is the American way.
Also, this is why polygamy will soon be legal. We can’t discriminate against plural marriage systems if we no longer have the view that marriage is only between a man and woman.
“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”
It isn’t the court that wandered onto a minefield. It was the Obama administration who did so by inserting the government intrusively into every living being’s daily life.
“It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
So, because an optional item is expensive, it is up to the government to force other people to pay for it.
Where is my Maserati, Justice Ginsberg?
Where is my HDTV, Jim?
Where is my jet ski, Chris?
Where is my around-the-world planet ticket, DN?
Where is my around-the-world planet ticket, DN?
Careful, DN’s idea of around-the-world planes includes DC-3s. I think its because he has problems counting to 4 or 8, 9, 10, but regardless, I wouldn’t take an airline ticket from him.
““The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage””
This is how the Dems are twisting the debate to LOOK LIKE it’s denying women access to BC. They are not.
Can’t afford it? get a job.
Can’t get a job?
Blame Obama.
“The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would…deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage”
Ginsberg isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the toolshed. if contraception isn’t part of a woman’s insurance coverage, she can obtain it for about $9 a month at Wal Mart or other competing locations. Heaven forbid that a woman have to pay a staggering $108 a year for contraception!
Well, don’t know about you, but my Facebook feed is full of women who don’t think whether or not they use birth control is their boss’s business.
Which is why they are libertarians?
Nice, but of course they don’t–what they mean is they don’t want to pay for it themselves.
This is ridiculous on the face of it, anyway. Contraception’s not costly.
IUDs, the most effective and widely tolerated reversible option for women, cost about $1,000.
Who cares? It’s none of my business what a woman does with her body.
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
It’s none of my business what a woman does with her body.
Unless you own a company that offers health insurance — then you get to decide what sorts of contraception will be covered.
Simple solution, don’t take the company provided health insurance and get your own. Millions choose this option. Some people even choose to purchase their own contraceptive without the overhead costs of a middle man insurance company. Only morons think buying through a middle man makes things cheaper.
As for IUDs, they have a 1/1000 chance of getting stuck or perforating the uteris. A 2 to 10% chance of being expelled in the first month. And if you get pregnant while using an IUD, because they are not 100% effective, you increased your chances of a miscarriage or severe birth defects. IUDs also provide only birth control and no protection from STD or STIs. Jim, if you are this ignorant about contraceptives, perhaps you shouldn’t be forcing people to purchase it for you.
Another simple solution: go work somewhere else.
I don’t even know why you are even bothering to open you mouth on the issue. According to Democrats, men are not allowed to express an opinion on women’s issues. Or is that just men who disagree with Democrat men? I get the victim hierarchy so mixed up and who Democrats allow to speak on any given issue. I guess I should stick to the golden rule, only Democrats are allowed to speak and have opinions.
Unless you own a company that offers health insurance — then you get to decide what sorts of contraception will be covered.
You forget the first rule of Feminism. It is her body, not a man’s.
The second rule: all our wallets are hers, not ours.
ruled that their religious objections didn’t have to be based on science — sincere ignorance is sufficient.
It’s a shame you don’t even understand the religious side. On abortion, the Catholic Church uses the argument of risk. They are not 100% that life does or does not begin at conception, so they take opinion that it does. There’s no ignorance here. In fact, its very rational.
Ah, the precautionary principle. It turns out that Rand and his commenters have said a lot about that principle over the years. Google it!
Why would “life” begin at conception? Why not before conception? Human eggs and sperm are just as alive as you are. Are they sure that an unfertilized egg doesn’t contain a human soul, waiting to be born? There must be some reason that the egg is larger than the sperm — maybe it is where the soul is stored. Or maybe size doesn’t matter and in fact, half the soul is in the egg and half is in the sperm. In any case, surely half a soul is sacred. And I bet that if half a soul is wasted, God gets quite irate. When it comes, so to speak, to haploid souls, we should apply the precautionary principle.
Human eggs and sperm are just as alive as you are.
They are not capable of developing into a human being separately. They’re not even capable of reproducing at all. Even a virus is more alive than they are. Really, this isn’t hard.
Using Monty Python as your argument is just silly. So is your lame attempt at the argument ad absurdum.
It isn’t that “life” begins at conception, it is that it may. Would you drive a car that may explode? Of course not.
Maybe Virgin Galactic should start orbital flights immediately. Although the rocket may or may not work, the idea of risk so ludicrous, we should mock it with cheap songs from the early 80s.
The scientific ignorance isn’t on the part of the Catholic Church (which consistently opposes all artificial forms of contraception), it’s coming from Hobby Lobby’s owners. They are happy to pay for birth control pills, but dead set against paying for morning-after pills and IUDs, even though the research shows that all three block pregnancy before conception.
Seriously, who cares? My neighbor may put solar panels over his roof with the idea that it will replace all the electricity from the power company. But it is HIS PROPERTY. It is none of my business.
The lame champagne liberal may drive an SUV with a moronic Terra Pass and think she is somehow guilt free of carbon emissions. But it is her money.
Is this so difficult?
A fertilized egg isn’t capable of developing into a human being “separately” either, and while I know what you mean, which is what everyone commonly means, I think the notions of “separately” or “independently” are rather vague. This isn’t just word games — consider the following, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis#Humans
On August 2, 2007, after much independent investigation, it was revealed that discredited South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk unknowingly produced the first human embryos resulting from parthenogenesis. Initially, Hwang claimed he and his team had extracted stem cells from cloned human embryos, a result later found to be fabricated. Further examination of the chromosomes of these cells show indicators of parthenogenesis in those extracted stem cells, similar to those found in the mice created by Tokyo scientists in 2004. Although Hwang deceived the world about being the first to create artificially cloned human embryos, he did contribute a major breakthrough to stem cell research by creating human embryos using parthenogenesis.[75] The truth was discovered in 2007, long after the embryos were created by him and his team in February 2004. This made Hwang the first, unknowingly, to successfully perform the process of parthenogenesis to create a human embryon and, ultimately, a human parthenogenetic stem cell line.
So, in 2004, unfertilized eggs became human embryos, but in this case, parthenogenesis required help from Dr. Hwang. And of course, since artificial wombs haven’t been developed yet, the human embryos would require further help from a woman, just as all human embryos currently do. Humans need help in many different forms until their extended childhoods are over, but they don’t always need sperm.
Who cares about your hair splitting. Science is never settled. Humans have the ability to reason as well, and this reasoning is valid as a means of organizing our behavior.
“A fertilized egg isn’t capable of developing into a human being “separately” either, ”
You mean outside their mother’s womb? Are you finally making some progress on understanding where babies come from and why there is a debate about abortion?
I usually understand the debate about abortion. Occasionally I get confused about the debate over extremely early abortion. I don’t know why people think that a tiny mass of cells with less cognitive capacity than an insect shouldn’t be killed on a whim, just as we can kill insects on a whim. A embryo surely does have human DNA, but so does a finger. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_embryogenesis to remind yourself about what we are talking about. The mass can be coaxed into growing a sophisticated brain given time and the right help, but as I just pointed out, an unfertilized egg can also be coaxed into growing a sophisticated brain given time and the right help. I think cognitive capacity is the key thing to determining personhood. I suppose other people don’t use that measure, but I’m not sure why. We have no qualms about killing ants because, although they are incredibly computationally sophisticated, their cognitive capacity doesn’t reach the threshold that we worry about. If the ant acted like a newborn baby, I think we should have enormous qualms about killing it. Since an embryo is less cognitively sophisticated than an ant, it is hard for me to see the issue (except for on arbitrary religious grounds, of course.) I confess I’m not putting much effort into this comment, because we’ve all been here and done this before.
I think cognitive capacity is the key thing to determining personhood.
But you don’t know for certain. That is the problem.
Given that you aren’t sure that personhood resides in cognitive capacity, does the medical practice of removing life support upon the determination of brain death worry you as much as abortion does?
As for me, I’m sure. I’ll stake my life on it. I’ll stake my children’s lives and the lives of all my friends and loved ones on it.
Any thoughtful person will ask “What if the world not only isn’t what it seems to be, but what if it is radically different, and everything I think I know is wrong?” Any thoughtful person will think along the same lines as Plato’s allegory of the cave, or the modern equivalent, the Matrix movie, and if you haven’t been exposed to either of those, then ask yourself this: “What if reality is the just the dream of a sleeping fanged Quasinitch who is about to wake up?” But those sorts of existential doubts really can’t play a role in your day to day decision making. Instead, we address a subset of those doubts with science. And the process of doing science has led most people to believe that personhood resides in the human brain: Cut off a leg, you’re still a person. Cut off a head, and you’re a corpse – a former person. I’m sure of this.
Funny, I’ve read Plato. But I guess I didn’t get the Cliff Notes to tell me how it relates to modern empiricism. Especially that part that says that this is the world of shadows and it cannot be trusted. Why you would bring that up when you are promoting a material based theory on cognition?
Science is a tool. It can lead to an accurate picture of reality. I’m currently studying tensor calculus to better understand General Relativity. It is gorgeous. But profound philosophical truths do not need to depend on empirical evidence. Any scientist (NB: a scientist need not be an ideologue) worth their bones will tell you this. The malaise of the modern is the idea that all truth must come from the Experimental Philosophy. That is bullshit.
Given that you aren’t sure that personhood resides in cognitive capacity, does the medical practice of removing life support upon the determination of brain death worry you as much as abortion does?
Consciousness is still a mystery. You have implied that brain activity and consciousness are the same thing. We don’t know if that is true. When someone is dead, brain activity is the final criterion, but there are other factors as well.
By all means, lop off the head of those who are brain dead. But if someone has a different opinion, don’t ram it down their throats.