John Boehner and Mitch McConnell want to make your family planning decisions. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
House Speaker John Boehner has
vowed legislative action if President Obama doesn't reverse his new health care rule requiring insurers and employers to provide no-cost contraceptive coverage. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) has
introduced legislation to do that. Senate Republicans were
already there.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) are leading the effort.
“This is about whether the government of the United States should have the power to go in and tell a faith-based organization that they have to pay for something that they teach their members shouldn’t be doing,” said Rubio.
The American people Rubio refers to is actually the Catholic archdiocese. He didn't know about the policy, he says, until an officiant at his church read the letter from the archdiocese at a service. Aside from the fact that the senator should perhaps be a little more on top of the job he's been elected to do, he should be aware that the American people are actually
pretty darned supportive of the new rule, including
his fellow Catholics.
And including some Republicans who see potential disaster for the party in picking this fight.
“I think this week’s outrage over the Komen decision should be a warning to the Republican party about how quickly there was a mass outrage over further and further attacks on general women’s health,” Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for choice, told me Wednesday. “You could see the same backlash on attacks on contraception.” [...]
“For the last number of years, we in the pro-choice community in general—and we specifically as Republicans—have been saying as this pandering to a sort of social conservative faction of voters continues, you’re going to see the line pushed further and further and further,” she said. “And we’re now crossing the line from discussion of when we should regulate abortion to when we should now regulate legal doctor-prescribed medications like birth control, which is woven in the fabric of society as an acceptable medication.”
Good luck getting that toothpaste back in the tube. There's no place in the Republican party any more for someone who isn't just pro-choice, but is pro-family planning. Those people have a choice: Leave the party or destroy it from within and rebuild it. The point at which you could reason them away from taking extreme ideological stands on social issues is long, long gone.
But the good news is Republicans are now showing their hand. It isn't just about abortion, it's about contraception and it's about injecting their distorted values in to the most intimate and personal aspects of American family life.
