Uh oh. Looks like Senate Republicans are having a hard time keeping the ladies in line on the
Blunt Amendment, set for a vote tomorrow. While the amendment is clearly designed to negate the Obama administration's new policy that mandates insurance coverage of birth control, the Blunt Amendment would allow employers to block insurance coverage of
any health care they deem morally objectionable.
While Democrats are eager to hold this vote, giving Republicans just enough rope to hang themselves, the majority of the already tiny and dwindling group of Republican women in the Senate aren't quite on board.
Via Greg Sargent, Sen. Olympia Snowe—who announced yesterday that she will not seek re-election—said today that she will vote against the bill because, "It’s much broader than I could support."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski hasn't indicated how she will vote, but said, "We’ve got way too much else to be doing." Gee, ya think?
Meanwhile, Sen. Susan Collins remains undecided.
It's no surprise that these women aren't enthusiastically jumping on the "let's screw over women" bandwagon. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans support the president's new policy, and Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU confirmed that yup, Americans of all stripes like birth control, and nope, they definitely do not support the Blunt Amendment.
Certainly even the Republican women in the Senate understand the absurdity of trying to deny preventative health care used by almost every single American woman at some point in her life, including, most likely, those women senators.
The Blunt Amendment is nothing more than an attempt by a handful of woman-hating men—some of whom are acting directly under orders from their churches, like Sen. Marco Rubio—to make Christian sharia law the law of the land. It is so blatantly wrong, so contrary to our founding principles, like the separation of church and state, and such unbelievably bad health care policy, that even the Republican women aren't eager to support this particular battle in the War on Women.
Email your senators and tell them to stand up for women and vote no on the Blunt Amendment.
