The White House has been skittish from the start about the new rule, which was announced last month only after internal debates at the White House that, to some extent, pitted women - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is Catholic; Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the deputy chief of staff, on one side, arguing forcefully in favor of the rule, administration officials said.The article says that Obama himself made the decision to go with public health rather than Catholic men's sensitivities. That's good to know because frankly I can't imagine why anyone in government should give a flying fandango about a bunch of elite Catholic men's sensitivities when it comes to birth control. Of course, the skuttlebut is that someone with "power" forced the poor man to do the wrong thing:
On the other side, cautioning that the administration tread carefully and look for ways to minimize another major break with the church, they said, were several Catholic men who are close advisers to Mr. Obama: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and William M. Daley, the chief of staff at the time. Also weighing in, administration officials said, was Denis R. McDonough, the deputy national security adviser, whose purview does not naturally extend to health issues, but who is a Catholic.
"I can't tell you how many times we went over this," one administration official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity.
DAVID BROOKS: I hear conspiracy theories. Who switched the president's mind? Who would have the power to change his mind after he had made these vows? I don't know. I really think they should come out and address it a little more, because not getting some of the front -page covers that I think it deserves. But it is out there.I thought for sure Brooks was talking about Michelle Obama, the shrieking harpy wife. But maybe he was just talking about the shrieking harpy female staffers. Or both, who knows? What we do know is that when you let the bitches weigh in on something like birth control policy, they're going to give the wrong advice.
[T]he primary compromise proposed, known as the Hawaii compromise, has been declared unacceptable by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The National Catholic Register reports:That's because they've violated their employer's conscience by insisting on having sex at home. You know how that goes. So, I guess it's back to the drawing board. What will appease the all-important elite Catholic men on this?[A] key official in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the Hawaii bill — repeatedly cited in media commentary — would not resolve the conference's concerns and would, in any case, be overridden by the federal rule.The Hawaii compromise was first proposed in October by Melissa Rogers, the former chair of Obama's Advisory Council to his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She described the Hawaii law, and a similar one in New York, as allowing religious employers that refuse to cover contraceptives to "provide written notification to enrollees disclosing that fact and describing alternate ways for enrollees to access coverage for contraceptive services." However, Rogers also noted that "these state laws are far from perfect. Further, we need more information about how they have worked in practice for all concerned."
"I've reviewed the Hawaii law, and it's not much of a compromise," said Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities and the bishops' chief lobbyist on life issues in the nation's capital. "The Hawaii contraceptive mandate has many of the same features as the new federal mandate."
Like the federal rule, he said, the Hawaii bill "covers all FDA-approved 'contraceptives' (including drugs that can cause an abortion); and the religious exemption is very narrow (though it does not include the requirement that the religious organization serve only people of its own faith to be eligible).
"It adds an extra feature — the requirement that any religious organization that is exempt must still tell all enrollees how they may directly access contraceptive services and supplies in an expeditious manner."
In other words, the Catholic Church must directly send women to drugs and devices that are morally wrong and can do harm to them.
Reproductive health advocates say in practice the laws are problematic. Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, says a law like Hawaii's or New York's "isn't something that works well when it comes to women getting services they need." Such a law, he told me yesterday, "puts the onus on employees to jump through hoops" to get the coverage they need.