GOP Continues To Oppose Contraception Coverage Plan Now Supported By Large Catholic Institutions

[ProSense]

GOP Continues To Oppose Contraception Coverage Plan Now Supported By Large Catholic Institutions

By Amanda Peterson Beadle

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops almost immediately rejected a compromise on requiring contraception coverage that the Obama administration announced on Friday, and Republicans have continued to attack the accommodation. Under the compromise, religious institutions will not be required to provide contraceptive coverage because insurers will provide contraception directly to employees at no cost, completely removing religious institutions from the equation. But this deal was not enough to satisfy conservative opposition.

On ABC’s This Week, Rep. Paul Ryan echoed the Republican objection of contraception coverage. Ryan told host George Stephanopolous the compromise is nothing more than a “fig leaf” and an “accounting trick”:

RYAN: To paraphrase the bishops’ letter, this thing, it’s a distinction without a difference. It’s an accounting gimmick or a fig leaf. It’s not a compromise. The president’s doubled down. [...] If this is what the president’s willing to do in a tough election year, imagine what he’s going to do to implement the rest of his health care law after an election.

STEPHANOPOLOUS: You heard Jack Lew right there, this is not going to force the institutions to pay for the coverage. [...]

RYAN: It’s a distinction without a difference. This is an accounting trick.

Watch his interview:

<...>

Ryan’s own heavily-Catholic home state of Wisconsin currently mandates contraception coverage without any exclusion for religious institutions. As ThinkProgress reported, Marquette University, a Jesuit institution located in Milwaukee, even decided to offer contraception coverage prior to the state’s mandate.

<...>

And Ryan and his Republican colleagues are arguing against a policy that a majority of Catholic voters support and that major Catholic organizations favor, including the Catholic Health Association, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and Catholic Charities USA. The Rev. John Jenkins, president of the Catholic-affiliated University of Notre Dame, supported President Obama’s compromise, calling it a “a welcome step toward recognizing the freedom of religious institutions to abide by the principles that define their respective missions.”

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/12/423563/gop-continues-to-oppose-contraception-coverage-plan-now-supported-by-large-catholic-institutions/

[justiceischeap]

1. What happened to the GOP?

Really, when did they become so focused on things that American's oppose. There seemed to be some, at least, sensible if not misguided Repubs in office, but I swear, it seems like maybe they've been huffing gas from bags and lost one too many brain cells.

They're usually better at reading their polling than this.

[Old and In the Way]

5. What happened? Citizen's United.

They don't need to raise money from common folks to run competitive races. They've got all the money they need to run campaigns as slimy and untruthful as we can anticipate. The question is, will this translate into votes? If they spend $500MM this year and get their collective asses handed to them, they are going to have to rethink an agenda that is being perceived by more and more people as anti-American.

[AndyTiedye]

12. They Are Planning to Steal It

They control the state governments in 27 states with a total of 270 electoral votes.
They are already hard at work trying to disenfranchise as many Democrats as possible.
Who knows what they will be doing on Election Day? We know what they are capable of:

[WCGreen]

13. My Republican Mother in Law and her Republican friends were all big supporters of

Planned Parenthood...

As I said in a post a week or so ago, the demographics in this country are changing so drastically that the GOP as we know it now will be gone within the decade.

That is probably why they seem so desperate these days, that they know the tide is turninng away from conservative "values" being forced onto people who want to live in the 21st Century and not the 15th.

[customerserviceguy]

18. They're doing a fine job of reading their poll data

This last few weeks, both conservative and progressive Catholics in the media came together. While each side views contraception differently, neither side wants to make their church institutions get into the middle of paying for it.

You talk about "things that American's (sic) oppose". Perhaps you don't realize that there are three points of view on contraception:

1) Those who think these things are morally wrong, and oppose any legalization or use of them.
2) Those who think that not only are they an essential part of health care, but that a person really has an obligation to use them, unless they faithfully practice abstinence, are naturally infertile, or can afford all the children that failure to use contraception results in.
3) Those who think contraception is just an option. They don't want to see anyone coerced from group #1 into giving group #2 what it wants, or vice-versa.

Like all elections, group #3 is the middle, and whichever side wins the middle wins the day. Right now, the religious freedom argument is winning that group over to the side of group #1, and the President's compromise is an attempt to say, "Nothing to see here, move along," to group #3 to keep them from siding with group #1. However, that group is trying to make the argument that simply defining something as free doesn't make it so.

That's what Ryan is talking about when he calls the whole thing an accounting trick.

[madaboutharry]

2. The republicans are now a bunch of freaks.

"GOP: NO DEAL....

Will Fight To Let ANY Employer Deny Birth Control
Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation that permits any employer to deny contraception coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says."

These jackasses can't let go of 1955.

[brewens]

6. How many employers would take advantage of that option? Kind of

offering them something they don't even want. Most employers hope women working for them don't get pregnant.

[customerserviceguy]

19. You'd be surprised

Any fundie who thinks women are baby-making machines that he's forced to hire by affirmative action would like a shot at being able to replace a woman with a man.

Here's another thing being sold here by Ryan, et al. and that's the slippery slope argument. If the government can force the mighty Catholic church's hospitals, universities, and charities to provide (directly or indirectly) contraception in violation of their official teachings on the subject, what else can they force them to do?

Perform sterilizations and abortions in Catholic hospitals?

Give health benefits to same-gender domestic partners or spouses (in the places where there is equal marriage)?

Start affirmative action programs for LGBT people?

Force the RCC to have female clergy in order to keep a tax exemption?

From what I've been reading here and there, they're beating that drum pretty loudly. Those who have always been against the ACA are implying that the Catholics who supported it in 2009 and 2010 were pretty naive or stupid to not see this coming. As the President's popularity has sunk in the heady days since his election and inauguration, they have fertile soil in which to plant the seeds of doubt.

[WCGreen]

14. 1955...

Try 1355...

[BumRushDaShow]

3. K&R

The Prez says "Up!". They say "Down!". The Prez says, okay "Down.". Then they yell "No! Up!". The people say "But he gave you what you wanted..." and they say "No! It's NOT what we wanted because HE gave us what we asked for!"



We are witnessing the nervous breakdown of the GOP. A leaderless conglomeration of crazies that have burst forth from the ugly, now-hollow shell that Raygun created.

[boxman15]

9. I hope you're right.

I'm really hoping this collapse happens this year and sends them back at least two decades. It'll give them time to move back to the center.

[mainer]

4. The GOP seems determined to lose this one

did Obama use a Jedi mind trick on them?

[warrior1]

11. You got it

3D multidimensional chess. Again. What a bunch of fools.

[spanone]

7. where are the catholic women on this issue?

all i've seen is guys jawing about this

[BumRushDaShow]

8. I saw something posted last night

that said that on the airwaves, something ridiculous like - men were asked to discuss the issue by 2:1 vs women when it comes to things dealing with women's bodies.

I think the poster got it from here:

Study Finds Cable Networks Are Asking Twice As Many Men To Comment On Birth Control As Women

So apparently it's being done on purpose. Hopefully the majority gender in this nation will wake up and rise up.

[Odin2005]

10. I'm starting to think Obama meant this to get the crazies into a froth, LOL.

When the crazies get into a froth it scares moderates, who run away from the GOP.

[Kingofalldems]

15. Of course Ryan has never used contraception

[AtomicKitten]

16. LOL. Somebody put a nickel in them and now they just can't stop.

I love it.

[dickthegrouch]

17. They're terrified of being labelled as flip-floppers

Serves them bloody well right.
They dare not acknowledge any form of evolution lest it open the possibility for all forms of evolution.

[opihimoimoi]

20. The Fools do not know they have the losing side of the equation....