Out of Control on Contraception

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/abortion-contraception-republicans.html

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This week in the world of Washington and sex:

— The House of Representatives passed a bill banning late-term abortions.

— One of the co-sponsors announced he was resigning from office after word came out that he had urged his lover to have an abortion.

— The anti-abortion Trump administration announced it was going to let employers off the hook if they didn’t want to cover contraception in their employee health programs.

Is anything wrong with this picture?

Many people of good will believe the country’s commitment to human rights makes abortion immoral. Fair enough. The best way to avoid abortions is to avoid unwanted pregnancy, which means making it as easy as possible for women to practice birth control.

How can you fight against both abortion and contraception? There are only two possible explanations.

One is that you’re a hypocritical politician trolling for right-to-life votes without any personal convictions whatsoever. The suddenly retiring congressman from Pennsylvania, Tim Murphy, would appear to fit into that category. Everyone in Washington has now read the text his girlfriend reportedly sent, complaining that he was making anti-abortion posts on his Facebook page while responding to her news that she might be pregnant by suggesting a quick termination.

Farewell, Representative Murphy. If you hadn’t been forced to resign, you’d probably have come up with a terrific post extolling President Trump’s announcement. Even though I’ll bet you were a contraception fan in private life.

Let’s call the second category Many Variations on the Little Sisters of the Poor. They’re people of sincere religious conviction, trying to impose their own personal theology on Americans who don’t share it.

Some of them claim, with no scientific backing, that birth control involves fertilized eggs being expelled from the uterus and is therefore abortion. Others just believe that it’s immoral for a woman to have sex without accepting the possibility of pregnancy.

“To put it simply, contraception is anti-baby,” says the American Life League on its website.

O.K., not a sentiment most Americans share.

When the Obama administration was putting the Affordable Care Act into operation, it struggled long and hard to allow employers with anti-contraception convictions to avoid directly providing the benefits, while making sure women still got birth control as part of their health care plan.

The Trump backtrack wasn’t about protecting employers’ right to express their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” It was about empowering them to impose those beliefs on their workers. “A landmark day for religious liberty,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan.

No, it wasn’t. It was a tough day for the First Amendment, for the people who’ve been struggling to make unwanted pregnancies, and abortion, as rare as possible.

It worked really well, though, for the hypocrites who want to kowtow to the religious right without any concern for the inevitable consequences.

Too bad Representative Murphy won’t be around for the celebrations.