Republicans Hand Democrats a Wedge Issue to Counter Abortion

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Matt Osborne

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Republicans are doing a great job marginalizing themselves by sticking up for employers’ “rights” to deny their employees birth control. More importantly, a stand against birth control access nullifies their advantage on one of America’s most divisive issues: abortion. Ezra Klein at WaPo:

(W)hen the conversation moves away from abortion to contraceptives – as it has this week – the intensity gap flips: A much larger segment of voters are willing to penalize a legislator who votes to defund family planning. That became apparent in polling that Democratic firm Lake Research Partners did earlier this year, which found that 40 percent of voters would be less likely to support a member of Congress who votes to defund family-planning programs. Just 22 percent would be more likely to support such a lawmaker.

That particular poll isn’t a perfect analogy for the current debate about the contraception mandate. But it speaks to something I’ve heard a lot in recent interviews with abortion right supporters: When the reproductive health debate moves away from abortion, it becomes easier to message and connect with voters. Unlike abortion rights, an issue that tends to split voters, most polls on contraceptives and birth control tend to find Americans solidly in support. That Lake Research poll I mentioned earlier found that 84 percent of Americans view family planning, including contraceptives, as basic health care. (Emphasis mine)

Remember, even the voters of Mississippi rejected personhood. When you tell pro-life women that their pills or IUDs will be illegal under an “abortion” law, support drops dramatically. If the GOP thought they could paint President Obama into an “anti-Christian” corner, then it’s a corner that contains a supermajority of American women.

For that matter, most of the White House’s “controversial” birth control policy has been in place for a decade, putting the Bushies and the Republican Senators who sponsored the Federal contraception mandate in that same corner. Republicans grandstanding on this issue in Congress should probably check their own health care plan as well:

Since 1998, every insurer participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) — including members of Congress — has had access to comprehensive contraceptive coverage, including emergency contraception, such as the morning after pill. Republican lawmakers now want to prevent access to the coverage they enjoy to employees of religious organizations who may not be of that religion or who disagree with anti-contraception doctrine (89 percent of Catholics say contraception decision should be theirs, not the church’s).

Whenever a Republican says the Constitution doesn’t include a right to privacy, remember they’re not just talking about Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court established privacy rights in Griswold v Connecticut by overturning a state ban on birth control. Not one major pro-life organization in the United States supports birth control access, so this is not hyperbole.

But it is a perfect wedge issue for Democrats, who have struggled with the abortion issue for years. Being a “pro-life Democrat” is no longer a workable solution in the teapublican age. Republicans have enforced a party purity on the issue, which means the entire GOP is vulnerable to this exploit. The whole party is picking up the torch of a conservatism straight out of the 1920s:

“Contraception is under attack in a way it really wasn’t in the past few years,” says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center. ”In 2004, we could not find any group—the National Right to Life Committee, the Bush campaign, anyone—that would go on the record to say they’re opposed to birth control,” adds Elizabeth Shipp, the political director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We couldn’t find them in 2006 either, and in 2008 it was just fringe groups. In 2010, 2011, and this year, it’s just exploded.”

2008 was a nadir of culture war conservatism. Teapublicanism degenerated from fiscal tightfistedness into a great doubling-down on culture war issues by the right. As a result, this element of the pro-life movement has slipped from the background into the limelight. It was always there, driven mainly by the Catholic conservatives behind the pro-life movement and veiled by the “right-to-life” rhetoric of Protestant politics. Americans get to see it now, out loud and proud.

About Matt Osborne

Veteran blogging the culture wars from Alabama. Video journalist, mash-up artist, aspiring novelist, and metalhead. Expect bunnies, geekery, dark humor, and snarky empirical analysis to annoy idealists of all stripes. You can follow me on Twitter, but be ready 'cause it might get loud.
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  • http://mdblanche.myopenid.com/ mdblanche

    The six Republican Senators who sponsored the contraception mandate consist of two women who now have Stockholm Syndrome, a man who was driven out of the party, a man who gave up and retired, and two men who lost their seats because of how toxic the Republican brand has become in their states, one of whom made a political comeback by quitting the party. This isn’t just grandstanding; Republicans really are a different party from who they were only a decade ago.

  • http://twitter.com/ferallike ferallike

    I can’t remember if I tweeted you this link but it’s to an article by a Professor of Moral Theology at the Jesuit Marquette University.  I hope its okay to cut & paste some of it here as I was told by a few people that they couldn’t get on the webpage last night.

    http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/07/whos-wrong-in-war-on-catholics-fight/ 

    The three most important paragraphs IMHO are: 

    A number of bishops, including Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa, have spoken strongly on the need for condoms, especially in areas ravaged by sexually transmitted diseases. The U.S. bishops are even at odds with the pope who approves the use of condoms “where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection.” 
    (snip)

    But the American bishops say the administration’s decision on Jan. 20 was a case of religious freedom. In that, they are right but not in the way they intend it. The bishops are claiming the religious freedom to violate the religious freedom of those who are employed in their institutions or who are served in their tax-supported hospitals. By denying contraception as part of employee health plans, what the bishops seek is more like religious fascism than religious freedom. 
    (snip)

    Furthermore, traditional Catholic teaching rests on a tripod, including the hierarchy, the theologians and the sensus fidelium, the experience-fed wisdom of the laity. These three sources of teaching are, as Cardinal Avery Dulles said, “complementary and mutually corrective.” An accurate look at Catholic teaching on contraception today shows strong support for the position that contraception is not only permissible but even mandatory in many cases. Catholic theologians overwhelmingly support contraception. Dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities cover prescribed contraceptives. Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women have used contraceptives. Only 2 percent of Catholic women use the “rhythm method” of birth control favored by conservative Catholics.

    Sensus Fidelium is the view that the church must also recognize the views of the faithful ie the Masses as they are guided by the teachings of the church as well as the Holy Spirit. Since 98% of the women of the Catholic church practice birth control, the American Bishops are defying not only Papal decree but also Sensus Fidelium , the view of the masses on the use of birth control. 

    My late father was raised a Catholic by a very strict Catholic mother.  He told me many years ago of the reason why he renounced Catholicism in his mid twenties:

    While working on his Masters in Clinical Psychology at San Francisco State in the early 50s, my father had to counsel children who had been put up for adoption. This was right after after Pope Pius XII declared artificial contraception to be sinful in ’51and the rhythm method as the only “contraceptive” sanctioned by the Church. There was a large number of poor Italian immigrants in San Francisco who were told that it was their divine responsibility to raise their children up to be Catholics and if they could not afford those children, they had to do what they needed to do. Instead of putting the baby up for adoption, they were being advised to put their oldest children up for adoption by a priest since, as the priests claimed, the babies would do better with their own mother. These older children were often unadoptable since they weren’t cute little babies. My father was charged with counselling these children who legitimately felt abandoned by their families.   

    After about 4 months of crying himself to sleep at night grieving for these abandoned children, my father decided to change his major to research psychology because he felt he was not emotionally strong enough to be a  Clinical Psychologist.  He then walked into the Catholic Church he had been attending and officially renounced Catholicism telling the priests that he could not be a member of a church that would condone such evil and abhorrent practices.  I believe he also called them some names w/ a number of explicatives attached as he said he was in a rage by this time after having watched these poor bewildered children grieve for the loss of their families, their security and their homes directly caused by the actions of the Church.  

    Forcing people to have babies when they can’t afford them or do not want is an evil and abhorrent practice.  The American Catholic Bishops are politicizing this for no other reason than they are glued to arcane Church dogma that has no place in this Century.  

    You’re 110% correct on this Matt. The GOP has really stepped in it this time and they’re gonna slip & wallow in it all the way to the election.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    You should write posts.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    YES. There is no republic in their party anymore.