There is no easy way to approach the reality of the Republican position on birth control.

Republicans oppose many or all forms of birth control. Rick Santorum, recent primary winner, thinks states should be able to ban the use of contraceptives. Mitt Romney endorses the Republican Party platform that life begins at conception, therefore prohibiting several birth control alternatives.

And now, after the Obama administration’s announcement that institutions outside of churches and their staff must offer for preventative care for birth control, Republicans are pandering to their base that this is war against the Constitution.

Actually it is war against the rising radicalism of a major political party, and a war that places virtually every American woman’s reproductive organs into the political arena and out of her personal, private control.

The new rule exempts churches and houses of worship from providing free preventive services, including access to birth control, but does not grant the exemption to church related entities that employ those not of a particular religious fate.

For example, a Catholic hospital that employs 1,000 women may find that a broad majority of those employees are not catholic. The church would argue that those employees must be restricted access to birth control not because of their individual beliefs, but because the sponsoring organization the Catholic Church, holds such beliefs. Such policies effectively force women to be denied reasonable access to preventative care because their employer simply asserts its morality over those of the individual.

And let us not be easily swayed that the church is arguing a position supported by its own members.

The facts are that, according to the Center for Disease Control, fully 99 percent of American women use contraceptives during their reproductive years. Further, 98 percent of American Catholic women use some form of birth control banned by their church, according to a Guttmacher Institute study.

So whose rights exactly are Republicans and the Catholic Church supporting here? Certainly not the rights of American women in general and not the rights of Catholic women in particular; neither seem important to those who would deny all access to contraception.

Perhaps it is insightful that the most outspoken advocates for the radical position of limited or excluded access to birth control are all, dare it be said, male.

Discriminating against women in health care is an outrageous proposition on its face; doing so while claiming the mantle of the Constitution is beyond the pale. The issue of the right of women to birth control was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965. The Constitution stands squarely in support of this right to privacy.

Can opponents argue that a woman’s reproductive system is not a health care issue? Hardly. Can they argue that women have absolutely no right to prevent unwanted pregnancies? Well yes, that is their argument here. And whether it is a church associated organization or a political party dominated by extremists, no person should hold the right over another on this most personal issue.

The public stands squarely behind full and free access to birth control. An NPR/Thompson Reuters poll found that 77 percent of Americans support insurance coverage for birth control. While the extremists among us may seem at times to have the loudest voices, they do not have the most rational argument.

There is a Constitutional right to contraception as a privacy right, and the extremists cannot prevail against the Constitution and the people.

The Obama administration has indicated it will work with the Catholic Church to find a path to a reasonable outcome that protects the church’s rights while also protecting the rights of all women. That is the way forward.

 

Jim Crawford is retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.