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| Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton |
Last week saw strong protest in response to an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans. The churches themselves were exempted from the requirement.
Several days later, President Obama modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, pay for birth control costs.Republicans find themselves on the defensive over the issue of contraception, only a week after they sharply attacked President Obama for attempting to require religious institutions to offer birth control coverage.
On Thursday of this week, House Republicans hosted a hearing on Obama's contraceptive policy Thursday in which eight of the ten witnesses were men. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents Washington, D.C., actually walked out of the hearing, while other Democrats slammed the session, which was hosted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"The chairman is promoting a conspiracy theory that the federal government is conducting a 'war' against religion," the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said of committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "He has also refused to allow a minority witness to testify about the interests of women who want safe and affordable coverage for basic preventive health care, including contraception," Cummings said of Issa.
Cummings added that a number of Catholic groups that have welcomed the administration's efforts to find a compromise, including the Catholic Health Association, and Catholics United, were not present at the hearing.
Issa responded that the committee did accept one Democratic witness, the Rev. Barry Lynn, head of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, but rejected a second person, a third-year student at Georgetown Law School named Sandra Fluke. Issa said the student did not have the appropriate credentials to testify at a hearing focused on threats to religious freedom and not on a single aspect of the health care law.
"Where are the women?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi asked when the hearing was brought up at a news conference. "The Republican leadership of this Congress thinks it's appropriate to have a hearing on women's health and purposely exclude women from the panel, she said. "I may at some point be moved to explain biology to my colleagues."
The more damaging controversy for the GOP may be a comment from Foster Friess, a wealthy Republican who is bankrolling the Super PAC that supports Rick Santorum. In an interview NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Friess said "back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives."
He added, "the gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly."
That's how Republican Presidential Candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) described the controversial comment made by one of his biggest backers.
Can you tell which issue is being discussed? Is it freedom of religion, preventing abortion, or eliminating contraception? The discussion is fluid by design. The Republican contiue their war against women's health issues with little regard for those that would be most greatly imparted by these decisions. Better keep your eye on the ball, they are determined to roll back the clock to the 1940's. If you close your eyes, women may even be barred from voting at all.
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