DN Editorial: War on contraception heats up health-reform debate

ONCE AGAIN, Catholic bishops - and conservative Republicans - are trying to make a "religious liberty" issue out of the provision of nondiscriminatory health-insurance coverage to women by falsely equating contraception with abortion.

In a policy outlined this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, beginning Aug. 1, most employer-based health-insurance plans will be required to provide birth control as a preventive health service without co-pays or deductibles. Under the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance plans have been covering other preventive services like immunizations and cancer screenings without extra charge since September 2010.

So Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is wrong when he claims that, under the new rule, Catholic-affiliated hospitals and colleges would have to provide health coverage for "abortion-inducing drugs." The policy states plainly that the coverage is only for FDA-approved contraception. (The contention that birth-control pills act after conception is scientifically inaccurate: even the Catholic Health Association agrees. It headlined a 2010 article on Plan B emergency contraception, "Science shows it is not an abortifacient.")

In 28 states already, health-insurance plans that cover prescription drugs must cover contraception.

The new rule includes a so-called "conscience clause" that allows a religious organization like a church to deny contraception coverage to their employees - that is, if the organization's major purpose is to serve people of the same faith. But religiously affiliated institutions that employ and serve people of other faiths will have to provide the same coverage as other employers; they will have an extra year to comply.

The bishops are adamant: their "religious freedom" to impose their teachings against contraception outweighs the "religious freedom" of their employees to use contraception.

Martin O'Malley, the Catholic governor of Maryland, called the recent uproar "too much hyperventilating," pointing out that many European countries with high Catholic populations have mandated similar birth-control coverage without the same kind of reaction.

That's because the "reaction" doesn't represent the opinion of the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly support access to family planning in general and this policy in particular: A poll yesterday found that, contrary to the bishops, 53 percent of Catholic voters - and 57 percent of all voters - support requiring Catholic-affiliated employers provide health plans that provide birth control.

If the Obama administration caves into yet another campaign of distortions and pressure, the war against reproductive rights that has already seen cuts to family-planning funds will escalate even further.

Tell the White House to hang tough.