(Reported by www.politico.com )
Just a few weeks ago, the notion would have seemed far-fetched. The country is deeply divided on abortion, but not on contraception; the vast majority of American women have used it, and access hasn’t been a front-burner political issue since the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965.But then Rick Santorum said states ought to have the right to outlaw the sale of contraception.
And Susan G. Komen for the Cure yanked its funding for Planned Parenthood.
And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops teed off on President Barack Obama’s contraception policy.
And House Republicans invited a panel of five men — and no women — to debate the issue.
And a prominent Santorum supporter pined for the days when “the gals” put aspirin “between their knees” to ward off pregnancy.
Democratic strategist Celinda Lake says it’s enough to “really irritate” independent suburban moms and “re-engage” young, single women who haven’t tuned into the campaign so far.
And, she says, the stakes are high: Women backed Barack Obama in big numbers in 2008 but then swung right in 2010. If the president is to win reelection in 2012, he’ll need to win women back — and Lake and other Democrats see the GOP push on contraception as a gift that will make that easier.
“I feel like the world is spinning backwards,” said former Rep. Patricia Schroeder, who has often related the troubles she has as a young married law student getting her birth control prescriptions filled in the early 1960s. “If you had told me when I was in law school that this would be a debate in 2012, I would have thought you were nuts … And everyone I talk to thinks so, too.”
Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, also sees the chance of a huge female backlash if the Republicans overreach.
“If women feel they are being targeted again, that women’s health is on the line — that’s not an argument you want to make in an election year,” she said.
Not so, says Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, who’s advising Newt Gingrich. Voters understand that Republicans aren’t trying to come between women and the pill. They are fighting for constitutionally protected religious freedoms.
“This doesn’t inhibit any woman’s ability to access contraception,” Conway said. “The question is should we pay for it, and should conscientious objectors be forced to compromise their beliefs.”
And, she argued, Obama blundered by talking reproduction while American women want to hear about recovery. Voters see it as a distraction from jobs, jobs, jobs.
“Overreach and distraction can really sink his presidency,” Conway said. “Voters demand a course correction from either party when they see overreach — and in his case, course correction means losing reelection.”
How it plays out between now and November may depend on how long the debate lasts — and whether the contraception-access or religious-freedom frame prevails.
The conservatives on the other side say the fight is not about birth control or women’s health. It’s about morality and religious liberty under the Constitution. And that’s a basic American value that resonates with voters, they say.
“That’s about as fundamentally American as any principle I’m aware of,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters this week. Blunt is sponsoring legislation that would allow any employer to refuse to cover any health benefit on moral grounds — not just birth control or abortion, and not just employers like a school or hospital that have a formal religious affiliation.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73043.html#ixzz1moGL2gLL
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