choices, WOMEN LOSE.

Right now, advantage to Obama. But, I remember debates where one candidate is thought to have won; and then after a week of media pounding, that candidate is declared the big loser.

I don't want any man telling me or my daughter how many kids we can have or should have. Stay the hell out of the bedroom.

the majority voting block is women.
99% of Catholic women use birth control as some point in their life.
the longer the argument goes on the worse the republicans look.

Obama wins.

The MSM have always been helpless before the preening, pompous peacocks of the Catholic hierarchy.

I think this is the wedge issue that might signal the end of the rule of the religious right.

but the "religious right" has supported some stupid stuff in the past and they are still here.

A lot of evangelicals and other religious right people are pretty pissed off about being used for political purposes.

They were promised two things - action to further restrict a woman's right to choose and a ban on gay marriage. They really got neither one.

While they continue to carry these same (and other) objectionable positions, I think they are less likely to vote for someone solely based on these issues.

and the religious right is not budging on anything. This area is a cesspool of conservatism. When I travel to South Carolina and other conservative areas I don't see any change, just a lot of hatred towards anything progressive. The only hope is the younger generations. I see hope with my kids and their peers

Even Catholics support birth control more than they support the Catholic bishops on this issue. The Republicans are stupid for making opposition to birth control a key campaign issue, Obama could not have asked for an easier to debate to win. The pundits who think this will harm Obama are totally clueless, nearly everyone supports birth control and views those who oppose it as out of touch extremists.

Catholics and any other religious people who are primarily shepherded by guilt always expect to be less "holy" than the holy men they set up as their nominal moral guides. Even though most Catholic couples use contraception, they still expect their clergy and its hierarchy to maintain their stubborn insistance on some screwed-up notions about sexuality. Few, if any Catholics actually confront that 'authority' over this, they just do what they want, and figure the invisible skyfather will understand.

When the bishops scream, cry and wail at the laity that they're being "forced" to support something immoral, the ordinary Catholic starts feeling sorry for Bishop Pedophile-Protector. He doesn't want to see his goverment confront the man in the pointy hat any more than he wants to do it himself. Being a religious person means accepting the crap that your religion shoves down your throat that your own intelligence tells you is just plain flat out wrong.

by the Santorum camp, their supporters, and the religious people who are on the wrong side of this debate.

President Obama is punking them and they don't even know it.

You see, by putting the rule into effect to begin with, he got them riled up enough to actually support the wildly unpopular side of this issue. But then he backed off by making insurance companies reach out to women directly in order to ask them if they'd like coverage for birth control, circumventing the issue of religious liberty and making sure that access to contraception will still be provided. Meanwhile, the people he pissed off can't stop talking about it, making them look like petty representatives of a by-gone era.

The tone of the discussion changed when the President backed off. Now anyone who is still griping about this gets "the beta-max reaction"...

They still make you?

AND the RW mouthbreathers like Santorum that the issue of contraception is somehow monumental and divisive. Can NONE of them read a poll and realize that 98% is a pretty united front for any issue? Looks like political opportunists are the ones trying to claim otherwise.

to manage their budgets. They want the right to decide when they enlarge their family. They also want that choice to be affordable. Why should insurance cover things like viagra and cyalis and not birth control? Why should women be treated differently than men? And why should families be forced to have children they cannot afford? It is a no brainer. The president wins hands down on this issue.

You're thinking logically. Religious people don't.

have expressed doubts about the policy.

Do you really know any Catholics? I was raised that way, and the elder members of my family are still stuck in that church. While it doesn't apply universally to every Catholic, the truly thinking ones have done like me and left the church, I know the mindset that keeps them in bondage.

I am not questioning your reasoning or experience, just your blanket statement about religious people.

Thanks for responding.

I didn't mean to include the mainstream Protestants, reform Jews, and Wiccans. I did, however, mean people who are motivated heavily by guilt, and that includes most people still within the Catholic church under the age of 60.

They have never wanted to cover women's health. They only want to cover things that happen to both sexes plus men's reproductive health.

In fact, I'm sure the bishops are using this particular time to prance around and preen and posture because there has been a sizable donation from the insurance industry to their coffers, depleted by sex abuse lawsuit settlements.

I'd bet the rent on it.

Insurance companies like contraception. It's cheaper by far than things like pregnancy, full on child birth, or abortion. And BTW, hormonal contraceptives are regulative, and help prevent fibroids, ovarian cancer, and many other problems that may afflict a woman's "equipment."

Don't get me wrong, insurance companies suck, and they really only give a shit about profit rather than health, but in this case it's a win-win: They get profit and PR.

for triple the premiums before a woman even thinks of getting pregnant. Once she is pregnant, they will not sell her that coverage.

They hate contraception the same way they hate paying for chronic illness. They declare those of us with chronic illness uninsurable or jack the premiums up beyond our ability to pay. They refuse to cover contraception (while they do cover Viagra) wherever they can get away with it, 22 states at last count.

Men fail to understand this at any level, it often seems, because they don't have to deal with any of this stuff. Women have had to deal with it for decades.

it is in the best interest of insurance companies to cover birth control.

I think, but am not sure, that what you refer to below is coverage of the newborn and not coverage of the pregnancy and delivery. There have also been issues around "pre-existing condition" clauses that may exclude coverage for women who are pregnant at the time that they sign up for insurance.

However, the Affordable Care Act addresses both of these issues and will require pregnancy/delivery coverage, no pre-existing exclusion and automatic care for newborns starting in 2014.

Prenatal care and childbirth are excluded from individual policies. They will not write a pregnant woman a family policy. It's been like that since I worked in underwriting in the 60s.

My policies covered all my pregnancies and deliveries.

At any rate, they are going to have to cover it starting in 2014, so I would think they will be quite happy to supply birth control, including sterilization.

that underlies much of the controversy. In sidestepping religion as the issue and focusing on access for women to a basic component of health care, he's framed the issue in broad Democratic terms. And in broad public terms regardless of party affiliation.

And Santorum, et al, have been more than willing to talk up that extremism in the public arena. An arena that overwhelmingly supports access and has routinely used birth control.

While not so pointed, Obama's stand reminds me of JFK in a way. JFK felt he had to address his Catholicism in relation to his public, professional role in light of some controversy on the issue. Obama, conversely, has addressed his public, professional role in relation to a largely Catholic hierarchy-led opposition on this issue.

I think both addressed a basic church/state conflict really well. And both won.

Obama HATRED blinds them, even when they don't care about religion, have used (or wives) BC and sterilization. They had Obama, and the Democrats, that they will find excuses to side with the right wing religious, Santorims, and extreme fringe Republicans, just because they are REPUBLICANS. Sheep are blind. My husband has a daughter and son-in-law who don't want and cannot afford children yet, and, the STATE OF NEW YORK pays for his daughter BC pills. It is mandated by the state. She shouldn't have them? Out of one side of his mouth he says yes, and the other side of his mouth (Fox News sheep) says NO. He cannot reconcile his brainwashing with his OWN flesh and blood. It is the same with all civil rights concerning our GAY DAUGHTER. I have told him you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You vote against your OWN INTERESTS. Republicans count of blind faith from their followers.

I'm buying.

Obama already has the nomination, but Santorum is still fighting for one. As the economic issues start to recede (especially for Republicons, they always seem to notice any recovery before most of the rest of us), social issues start to come back to the forefront. Let's face it, Sicky Ricky is much more positioned to take advantage of that than either of his rivals.

As for what happens down the line, we still don't know the final outcome of the issue. The bishops have already rejected the President's compromise, and I can understand why. Simply declaring something to be free does not mean it is free, it just shifts how the costs are ultimately bourne. The men in the pointy hats have already figured that one out. We have no idea what subsequent compromise(s) will be made to deal with this, and the boost in popularity that the President is now enjoying from his base may well dissipate, as it has previously when he has disappointed that base.

If he holds firm, then he has to deal with the bishops using their considerable powers to induce guilt in Catholics as they face the choice between someone who made them look bad, and a fellow Catholic. They'll have many months to work on the sheep.