What We're Reading This Morning -- March 22
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Good morning everyone! As Republican candidates get ready for the upcoming Louisiana primary, Mitt Romney’s campaign is all shook up. Yesterday, Romney’s senior advisor compared their Republican primary strategy to an “Etch-A-Sketch,” — as if everyone will forget his primary record when they “shake it up and start all over again.” We won’t let him get away with that. Women won’t forget that he wants to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood and cut off affordable health care to millions of women. He simply can’t be trusted. So as the campaign tries to dig itself out of that hole, we’ll distract you with some morning reads….
In the race to see who could be the worst candidate for women, you only have to look where Republican presidential candidates stand on the health care law. “Celebrating Women's Health and the Affordable Care Act” — “Unfortunately, Mitt Romney, the leading Republican presidential candidate, is desperate to woo his party's most extreme elements, and pledges that he would ‘get rid of’ ACA's health benefits if elected president. This is on top of his campaign promise to ’get rid of’ Planned Parenthood. In other words, Mitt Romney wants to take a major step backwards on women's health, undermine access to preventive health care such as cancer screenings and birth control, take away protections against medical discrimination, and allow insurance companies to charge women more for health care. Mitt Romney's leading opponents in the Republican presidential primary, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, are just as retrograde in playing politics with women's health.”
The debate over contraception is really about contraception, says Catholics for Choice President Jon O’Brien. “The bishops’ contraceptive problem” — “After President Obama’s administration announced in January that most employers must offer health insurance plans that include coverage for contraception, the bishops launched a media blitz alleging that the policy violated their religious freedom. They rejected any compromises that did not meet their demands fully. The hierarchy supported legislation -- ironically claiming to support conscience rights -- that would codify the ability of any employer, Catholic or not, to refuse to respect individuals’ moral decision-making on birth control. Crucially, the hierarchy is ignoring the facts -- 98 percent of sexually active US Catholic women have used contraception, and 63 percent [of] Catholic voters surveyed in 2009 supported health insurance coverage — funded privately or by the government — for contraception. The US bishops’ attempt to legislate away reality is reminiscent of the toll the Vatican’s rejection of birth control has exacted upon the church.”
