At the recently held Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) a panel session discussed that the fight against birth control wasn’t working. As this comic points out, how can the Catholics call birth control a deeply held religious belief when not only have 97% of Catholic women used birth control, but a majority of Catholics say it should be covered by insurance policies.
So what solution did the CPAC panel have for this problem? Simple! Reframe the debate. Stop calling it “birth control” and start calling it an “abortion mandate”. Of course, there is no abortion mandate, but reality doesn’t matter. As the president of Americans United for Life put it:
As an organization we’re going to be more disciplined about talking about the abortion mandate coming from HHS and I would encourage you all to do the same.
How in the world are they going to reframe this issue? Again simple, according to Right-To-Life president Carol Tobias:
I truly believe the mandate from HHS was a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to get a discussion in this country right before the election over whether men controlling the Catholic church can tell women whether or not to take birth control. That’s the debate they want. We need to bring it back. This is religious freedom. If they can tell the Catholic Church that they have to provide contraception to their employees, then they can also tell National Right to Life that we have to provide abortions for our employees.
Wow! I had no idea that the government was forcing the Catholic Church to provide contraception to their employees. Because they aren’t. The regulation specifically says that even Catholic hospitals are not required to provide contraception to anyone (including their employees) and the compromise worked out by Obama guarantees that they don’t have to pay for it for their employees either.
I guess their philosophy is “When in doubt, lie” and “If you’re going to lie, make it a really big lie“. You know, by calling it an “abortion mandate”.
6 Comments
I am sorry the Catholic jihadists have declared war and that. They plan to SE terrorism against the masses. Time to send them all to Guantanomo.
For those of you who have a prejudice against Catholics (as I do because of the lying, then going to Confession to absolve the sins, total hypocrisy), I have just come across a book by the Priest Andrew Greeley. I loved his novels. This is not a novel. “A stupid, unjust, and criminal War” 2001-2007. Published in 2007. I just got it, have yet to read it.
Whoops, about Iraq. I read them all.
With all the diversity of opinion that usually is found in the comments section of this site, I am quite surprised by the unanimity of opinion in this post and others against the catholic church. As an ex-altar boy, I feel this may be my place to jump in. There must be something positive to say.
I like the robes.
Something positive to say? How about “The Catholic Church brought us fish on Friday”?
To be honest, I have absolutely nothing against religions. But I’m not fond of big institutions of any kind — big corporations, big unions, big government, big charities, or big churches. Too much concentration of power leads inevitably to corruption.
@Iron Knee, funny you should say that about big institutions. What seems to be lost in all this is that health insurance companies now have so much ‘power’ that access to even simple and commonly used forms of care (contraception, 97% yada yada yada) is heavily determined by healthcare status. Interesting that hasn’t been talked about on the news…