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One theory making the rounds in political circles is that President Obama set a trap for Republicans on the contraception controversy and let the kerfuffle linger for two weeks while GOP presidential candidates and congressional leaders sided with blocking birth control for Americans who work at Catholic-affiliated workplaces.
I’m not sure I buy that – I see more bungling than conniving here – but I’m also convinced that the Republicans made a huge mistake by jumping on the Catholic Church’s bandwagon. Polls show that women of child-bearing age, including Catholic women, almost universally favor easy access to contraceptive devices.
Yet, the GOP’s surging candidate, Rick Santorum, has gone so far as to say he doesn’t believe any insurance policy should be allowed to cover contraception. If the Republicans think the initial move by Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blocked basic freedoms, the Santorum message would be seen by voters as far more dictatorial than what the president proposed.
Amanda Marcotte at Slate has led the way in pushing the theory that Obama hoodwinked the right.
“After two solid weeks of Republicans rapidly escalating attacks on contraception access under the banner of ‘religious freedom,’ Obama finally announced (that) the White House is proposing an accommodation of religiously affiliated employers who don’t want to offer birth control coverage as part of their insurance plans,” Marcotte wrote.
“… Insurance companies are down with the plan… contraception actually saves insurance companies money, since it’s cheaper than abortion and far cheaper than childbirth.
“… He (Obama) drew this out for two weeks, letting Republicans work themselves into a frenzy of anti-contraception rhetoric, all thinly disguised as concern for religious liberty, and then created a compromise that addressed their purported concerns but without actually reducing women’s access to contraception, which is what this has always been about….”
Surprisingly, one of the veteran conservative bloggers, Althouse, gives credence to Obama outsmarting the Republicans, and she agrees that the GOP is on the verge of alienating millions of female voters.
Here’s what she wrote:
“Now, those who complained about the old rule have a choice whether to move on to some other traditional-values issue or to find a way to say that the problem is still there. If they do the latter — as Rush Limbaugh did (in) a series of semi-coherent rants on his show (Friday) — they’re going to annoy/scare the millions of women who use contraception and the millions and millions of women and men who want other people to use contraception. (Don’t forget the “Freakonomics” theory connecting the avoidance of unwanted pregnancy to a reduction in crime.)
Liberals might find that argument distasteful, but there is certainly a dog whistle message in the intra-party GOP pushback that has just begun.
As a professional in the Health Insurance Industry this has nothing to do with contraceptive devices, for they have been available with ease to everybody. This is more about the mandate of morning after pills. Not the use of contraceptives or the ignorance of not using protection during an adult act. To force someone to except something they do not believe in (the act of ending a possible life) is outrageous. If anybody thinks something is for free you are truly gullible an easy victim. Wake up people.