Contraception controversy – now the politicians want to be Pope

When the issue arose several days ago about an Obama administration rule that nearly all employers must offer contraception coverage in their employees’ health insurance policies, I assumed it was one of those silly 1-day stories that fuel the talk-radio shows.

But, somehow, this issue will not go away. I can understand the Catholic Church, strictly adhering to teachings that go back centuries, trying to drive this debate.

Yet, make no mistake, this is a controversy that was procreated in the devilish minds of GOP troublemakers, with the assistance of a bumbling Obama administration that failed to take proper prophylactic measures when finalizing such a sensitive subject.

First, we need to realize that 28 states already ban health insurance policies that refuse to offer contraception coverage. Most states, but not all, reportedly make exceptions for churches.

Next, let’s acknowledge that nearly every responsible family in America engages in planned parenthood. And no dividing line exists for Catholics. One survey frequently cited during this debate found that 98 percent of Catholic women use or used some form of contraception during their child-bearing years.

The federal law proposed by critics would satisfy a morality clause for a miniscule minority of the population to the detriment of everyone else. Most significantly, this proposed rule would apply to the millions of uninsured who will soon attain health coverage through Obamacare. These are mostly low-income families who consider the choice between a meal and the pill a no-brainer.

In addition, there is a generational factor at work here. Most of those Catholics who solemnly believe that contraception interferes with God’s will are 70- and 80-year-olds. They are on Medicare, not a private insurance policy, and their child-bearing years are well behind them.

So, are we reverting back to 1955, when Catholics strictly adhered to church doctrine? Is this 2012 dust-up the flip side of 1960, when Protestant voters worried that John F. Kennedy would take his marching orders from the pope?

Now, we have a bunch of politicians (Democrats and Republicans) telling us that the pope’s teachings must be respected in federal policy, or our nation will betray its heritage of religious freedom.

But these critics have conveniently ignored one basic fact: The outline for Obamacare does not force anyone of any religious faith to purchase contraceptives. They will be offered the choice. And choice is freedom.

If the president wanted to mandate contraception for all, Americans of all faiths would rightly express outrage. But let’s be clear: A mandate for contraception coverage would be a violation of our rights as American citizens, not merely a violation of religious freedom.

Let me pause: I was raised a Catholic. I attended Catholic schools. My parents were devout Catholics.

But for most of my life I’ve encountered “cafeteria Catholics” who pick and choose which church doctrines they follow. One extreme example: Though the church equates abortion with murder, many Catholic women are pro-choice. I can assert that most Catholics for the past 30 or 40 years quietly considered the ban on birth control an archaic, puritanical leftover from past centuries.

So, the position now taken by some in Congress is that employers must embrace a much more stringent view on birth control than nearly all Catholics follow in their private lives.

Which brings us to the numerous benefits of contraception, even as politicians in recent years increasingly provide lip service to the value of preventive care.

Preventing unwanted pregnancies reduces abortions, AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and poverty. Countless studies have shown that low-income families and single moms saddled with an unintended pregnancy can be a prescription for disaster: child abuse and neglect; poor performance by the child in school; the propensity in the child’s teenage years to drop out of high school; an increased risk of the child becoming involved in drugs, prostitution or crime; and, ironically, a much higher chance of a teen pregnancy.

But the church, which stakes much of its reputation on a duty to help the least among us, rarely acknowledges those facts.

Let’s remember that the pope a few years ago traveled to Africa, a continent still ravaged by AIDS, and told his audiences that they must not use condoms.

I wonder if the only Catholics who still believe in a strict ban on birth control are the pope, the Catholic clergy and Rick Santorum.

Some of our elected officials will soon realize that this purity standard is really an attempt by the church to ban condoms and the pill and all other pregnancy-prevention devices for all. A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has conceded that they believe all Catholics should be able to demand that their employer provide them with an insurance policy that does not offer coverage for contraception.

I don’t need to tell you what kind of slippery slope that portends.

Though the Obama administration has made it clear for months that they will offer an exception for Catholic churches, religious ideologues insist on an exemption that extends to Catholic schools, universities, hospitals and charities.

The obvious problem here is that many employees for those institutions are not Catholic and consider a ban on contraception coverage a Victorian-era rule that impedes their practice of responsible health care.

I understand the argument that intermingled funds in an employee-employer health plan means that contraceptive treatments are financed by all in a given workplace.

But let’s just reach a face-saving compromise for all, change the federal rules to require a small employee co-pay for contraception at Catholic-based institutions, and then let’s move on to campaign issues that will actually matter in 2013 when a president and Congress get down to work.