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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

Madness for Church and GOP to oppose contraceptive use for women or men

Posted on Thursday, February 09, 2012 at 08:31 AM
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Rick Santorum
The Catholic Church and the Republican Party are utterly wrong in opposing contraception in health care plans.

Surveys show that Catholics by a wide margin of 16 per cent believe that contraception should be offered in every health care plan as a matter of fact.

Whether a person wants it as part of their plan is their own business and no one elses, no matter where they work.

Fighting the contraception issue makes the church look once more like it is targeting women.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has come out firing against contraception of any kind as well.

(Maybe he is over compensating for the fact that his wife once lived for many years with an abortion doctor)
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One wonders what century does he think he is running in?

Women have won that battle over a century ago and contraception is as much a fact of family life in America among every religious and ethnic group as apple pie.

To pretend otherwise is to try and turn the clock back to the witch hunt days when women were viewed as evil and possessed if they showed any form of sexual desire.

One wonders what witches brew Republicans and the church are sipping from if they think this is an issue that will win them any major support.

Every woman in the country will see it for what it is, a naked attempt by powerful men to once again gain control over them and their bodies.

One hopes that a Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will not go down the Santorum line and state clearly they are for contraception as a form of birth control.

While the church,no doubt, would enjoy every woman in the country going back on the laughably named rhythm method, the reality is that they too, are revealing their gross ignorance of the reality of the modern era.

We are not living under the Taliban or the mullahs, at least not yet in America.

Sometimes though you have to wonder.


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47 Comments

15 - 47 | See all comments

eiriamach | Feb 14, 2012, 04:19 PM EST
I suspect some posters here are in denial, like Cardinal Egan, who notoriously said about protecting abusive priests, "I don’t think we did anything wrong.” I stopped by a Catholic Church Sunday just in time to hear a priest telling the people to "protect innocent life" against Obama's trespass on the First Amendment. Jesus drove the money changers from the temple. Who will throw out the liars? Because of decades of unresolved sexual abuse horrors in their Church, Catholics have been so long in denial that they cannot think their way out of a fog of clerical power-tripping. Their psychological state is a form of mass hysteria, denial of reality, total dependence on priests and bishops to think for them. Is church authority what they need in that state of mind? No, they need the freedom to think clearly about what the US Constitution protects and what 'religious freedom' means. They're pawns in a crude power grab, as seen in NY Cardinal Dolon beating up verbally on Sister Carol Keehan, the nun who heads the 750,000-employee Catholic Health Association. He told her he was "disappointed that she had acted unilaterally, not in concert with the bishops" when she said that exempting Catholic employers from paying for contraceptive insurance would resolve the problem of Catholic conscience. The USCCB complains of "lack of clear protection for key stakeholders." They actually think they are the "stakeholders" in a debate over women's reproductive-health insurance! Self-deluded bishops, parishioners in denial, and priests exploiting them with lies from the pulpit: welcome to church, American style.

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seanomelb | Feb 13, 2012, 05:01 PM EST
A typical comment from a right wing stooge who has no idea of common sense and fair play.If you think the 1st.amend.is trampled on prove it with facts and not political gobbledy gook.

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dublinduke | Feb 13, 2012, 01:08 PM EST
Get out of the weeds and focus on the macro issues. Obama is a radical idealogue who is riding roughshod over the Constitution generally and specifically has declared war on the first amendment. The US didn't fight a war of independence only to allow this chowderhead to declare his mandates trump the Bill of Rights. Further deponent sayeth not.

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seanomelb | Feb 12, 2012, 04:59 PM EST
The bishops did not give a dam about paedophilia until the proverbial hit the fan.Their concern for the sanctity of life in the womb is not matched by their concern for the sanctity of life post natal. A plague on their hypocritical stance and the Catholic inquisitors led by Opus Dei and their mouth pieces on this site.

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Gearoid4 | Feb 12, 2012, 04:20 PM EST
The first amendment states that the state does not support any Church but it also emphasizes that the state does not interfere with the practice of religion. It seems that the Obama administration is determined to ride roughshod over the right of Religious bodies to act according to the most profound precepts of their Faith as is evident in the insidious nature of the controversial Health Care law. A peaceful campaign of civil disobedience is called for.

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dublinduke | Feb 12, 2012, 02:03 PM EST
Obama's mandate has zero to do with contraception and everything to do with the fundament right to religious liberty for citizens of all faiths as set forth in Amendment 1 of the Constitution. It is the basis upon which then US was founded. So set aside your personal biases and dislikes of the church and rally behind the Constitution. His mandate is unconstitutional and must be reversed in its entirety.

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eiriamach | Feb 12, 2012, 08:42 AM EST
Women's votes carry elections. Since 1964, women have voted in greater numbers than men, regardless of ethnicity, income level, or age. In 2008, 70.4 million women cast votes (60.4%), compared to 60.7 million men (55.7%). In 2004, 8.8 million more women than men voted. Voters under age 30 favor Democratic candidates by 58%, GOP candidates by 33%. Even if not all 18-year-old women understand the importance of having equal health care insurance as employees, their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers do understand, and we vote! Expect a blitz next November; expect to see the GOP War on Women end decisively at the polls as women turn out in battalions to oust the arrogant males who are trying to take us back to Pre-Title VII days. Obama will not cave on this issue. He knows the consequences for himself and the Dems if he allows the bishops, backed by the party of 'No,' to wipe their boots on women's necks. (Statistics online at Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.)

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eiriamach | Feb 12, 2012, 07:28 AM EST
The First Amendment is intended to keep government out of church preaching and doctrine; it does not give any church the right to nullify or dictate legislation that protects the right of privacy of individuals to limit their family size. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof": when the Catholic Church can nullify a law that gives women health care insurance that is equal to men's, the Catholic Church makes itself an "established religion," one that militates against women having equal rights under the law. Without equal treatment under the law, no right or liberty protected by the Constitution has any value. The HHS rule, on the other hand, interferes in NO WAY with anyone's "free exercise" of religion. Anyone who has conscientious objections to contraceptives is perfectly free not to use them, and now Obama has made it unnecessary for Catholic employers even to pay for contraceptive health insurance coverage. Catholic employers will not have to "sponsor" contraceptive coverage for their employees! What problem remains, except that the bishops have not flexed enough political muscle, confused enough of their parishioners about how the US Constitution works, or assaulted the equal rights of women sufficiently?

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seanomelb | Feb 12, 2012, 12:50 AM EST
Gearoid is overstating the side effects of the pill.I personally do not believe in abortion (in most cases)but I do not believe that I have the right to force my beliefs on others.We all live by our own principals and Gearoid thinks his are paramount. Americans are free to practise their religion and no one wishes to take their rights from them the healthcare issue is been twisted and turned by right wing christians to force their minority opinion on others and hoping to destroy Obama what mean spirited people they are.

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Gearoid4 | Feb 11, 2012, 09:30 PM EST
At the end of the day, Eiriamach, you are talking about a woman having control over her body and what she does with it, whatever the consequences are for the life inside her. It is the rights of the strong over the weak that you are trumpeting. The First Amendment does indeed protect the rights of religious organizations not to be interfered with or dictated to by the state. There can be little doubt that the Obama administration are imposing conditions on them which infringe this and other amendments very starkly. I doubt very much your figure that 98% of Catholic women of child-bearing age practice contraception. This sounds more apocryphal in essence than fact. Anyway ethics should not be decided on the basis of the behavior or voting practice of the majority. Ciara, you mention that contraceptive pills protect women from certain very serious conditions. Are you aware of the serious illnesses or diseases that these pills can induce in those who use them from an early age and over an extended time frame? These include thrombosis,angina, heart-disease, breast cancer and even infertility. The Ella pill is indeed is an abortifacient and it has been known to expel the fertilized egg from the uterine wall

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ciaradexy | Feb 11, 2012, 05:36 PM EST
The contraceptive pill protects women from ovarian and endometrial cancers and is a treatment for endometriosis and more importantly, it gives women control over their own bodies. The catholic church should keep their hands off our eggs.

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seanomelb | Feb 11, 2012, 04:46 PM EST
Contraception and abortion can be a health issue (not that it matters)Gearoid states Obama is tranmpling on peoples right. The only rights is the individual rights of women and their partners that are threatened.The rights hypocritical stance toward the sanctity of life is amusing as they defend capital punishment which is condemned by the pope.Their love of guns has caused unneccasary deaths and their penchant for sending young men to fight illegal wars.So much for the sanctity of life.

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eiriamach | Feb 11, 2012, 03:45 PM EST
Whose civil liberties does the HHS rule infringe, if not the 98% of Catholic married couples who have used contraception and the vast majority of non-Catholic women who also have used it? HOW does it infringe on any civil right of the bishops who are stamping their feet about religious liberty? Tell us "the point," please, teadoir. I was gratified to see NY Times editor Andrew Rosenthal write the following: "This really is a health issue, as opposed to a purely political matter. About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and expanding access to birth control could lower the abortion rate. The Institute of Medicine, an independent group of doctors and researchers, has called birth control a medical necessity (not a mere convenience) 'to ensure women’s health and well-being.' I understand that the Catholic Church in particular feels strongly about birth control, but this isn’t a theocracy. Religious doctrine cannot dictate public policy. (That’s actually a conservative position, in the true meaning of the word.)"

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teadoir | Feb 11, 2012, 02:46 PM EST
Clearly you don't get the point, this is an infringement on our civil liberties and total disregard for the First Amendment. It has nothing to do with contraception. I'm a liberal Democrat and voted for Obama in the last election, but this time I will vote against him due this administrations trashing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This country cannot take anymore of his policies after the fleecing of our country by W's spending. He clearly is over his head for this position.

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GeorgeDillon | Feb 11, 2012, 02:15 PM EST
eiriamach--Still pumping out the same old bigotry. Don't you have a Klavern meeting to attend?

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