Is Obama preparing to copout on Birth Control?
Which Democrat is liable to copout on supporting birth control?
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
A dispute has erupted between President Obama and Democrats in Congress over a proposal to broaden the exemption from new rules that require health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women free of charge.
The National Academy of Sciences recommended that the government adopt such a requirement. And Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, announced in August that she had done so. But after protests by Roman Catholic bishops, charities, schools and universities, the White House is considering a change that would grant a broad exemption to health plans sponsored by employers who object to such coverage for moral and religious reasons.
Churches may already qualify for an exemption. The proposal being weighed by the White House would expand the exemption to many universities, hospitals, clinics and other entities associated with religious organizations.
The prospect of such a change has infuriated many Democrats in Congress, who fought hard to secure coverage of birth control under the new health care law. Senators voiced their objections on Thursday in a telephone conference call with Pete Rouse, counselor to the president. House members registered their objections on Friday in a call with Valerie Jarrett, another member of the president’s inner circle.
House members have sent a letter to Mr. Obama urging him not to widen the exemption. Such a change, they said, would keep contraception out of reach for millions of women.
Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said the broad exemption was “an outrageous idea.”
“Millions of women work for colleges, hospitals and health care systems that are nominally religious, but these folks use birth control and need coverage,” said Ms. DeGette, a leader of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus…
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said: “There is not a scintilla of legislative direction in the statute that requires the broadened exemption the administration is contemplating. This change would be a reversal of the progress made in favor of reproductive rights when President Obama took office…”
When the administration announced the requirement for contraceptive coverage, it said the decision was “based on science.” The resulting uproar has forced Mr. Obama to weigh competing claims of Catholic leaders and advocates for women’s rights, including some of his strongest supporters.
You can RTFA if you feel some compelling need to examine the claims of 14th Century ideologues. The National Academy of Sciences is about as safe as houses for any politician grounded in 20th Century progress – much the 21st Century.
Apparently Obama feels the need to give at least lip service to unconstitutional demands by churches and fundamentalist foolishness. Whether he’s silly enough to give up on men and women who support basic women’s rights to court voters who oppose freedoms agreed to by courts and legislation for most of the decades since World War 2 is beyond comprehension.
But, then, opportunism by just another Democrat instead of hard work and principled struggle ain’t exactly a new phenomenon.
Woman use birth control for other things other than a contraceptive. Many women use them as a treatment for hormone imbalances.
The ONLY argument to remove this from the Affordable Care Act is a religious reason. It is letting these groups have too much influence over those who may well not believe in the their version of reality.
mpbulletin
November 20, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Congress-clowns wander around wondering why most voters hold them in contempt. From voting for pizza to be a vegetable to patent-leather excuses for supporting religious ideology over science – we are fed up to the eyeballs.
This is not an issue of conservative vs. progressive. It is an issue of honesty, leadership and ethics vs. craven, opportunist pimps.
moss
November 21, 2011 at 5:20 am
Nice caption on the photo – because we all can be confident that Sebelius won’t cave to the religious rightwingers.
Toby
November 21, 2011 at 7:34 am