Hullabaloo: The anti-birth control faction gets down to business

by digby

Monday, February 6, 2012

RSC Update: ObamaCare’s Attack on Religious Freedom

From the Chairman
If the CLASS Act is a microcosm of the gimmicks and dishonesty involved in creating ObamaCare, one recently imposed regulation is the clearest expression yet of how government-run health care will trample on Americans’ constitutional rights.

Most people commonly associate the First Amendment with freedom of speech, but its first words are actually to guarantee us freedom of religion. Yet, under an ideological new rule handed down by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, many organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church will be required to provide free contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs in their employees’ health insurance plans.

Forcing Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities to subsidize contraception and abortion is a blatant attack on the freedom of religion that Americans have valued since the days of the Pilgrims. People of all faiths and political views should be able to agree that this action is unacceptable.

Conservatives in the House and Senate will fight this violation of religious freedom. With a groundswell of support from you and other concerned Americans, I know we can win.

Please spread the word.

God Bless,

Congressman Jim Jordan
Chairman, Republican Study Committee

So, who are these people? The usual suspects:

The Republican Study Committee [RSC] is a caucus of over 170 conservative members of the Republican Party in the United States House of Representatives. Though the primary functions of the Republican Study Committee vary from year to year, it has always pushed for significant cuts in non-defense spending, advocated socially conservative legislation, and supported the right to keep and bear arms...

It was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists to keep a watch on the House Republican leadership, which they saw at the time as too moderate...

The organization has long had ties to outside groups closely allied with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party, such as theNational Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the conservative magazineNational Review, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute.

A subgroup of the committee, the Values Action Team, coordinates legislation with religious organizations, including the Christian right. It has been headed by Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania since its formation in 1997.

They're not going to let this go. But as you can see, it's only the true believer wingnuts who are on this thing --- Democrats will not benefit one bit from caving. And if the Komen flap taught them anything at all, it should be that there is a large contingent of Americans who are unsympathetic to these anti-choice zealots. Sometimes you have to make a choice.

Clearly, this is going to be an ongoing battle. The argument is no longer about abortion. It's also about birth control. This is no surprise to those of us who've been following this closely for a while. But the fog is starting to lift among the more mainstream observers. The question now is whether or not the right can succeed in making birth control one of those "controversial" icky issues that everyone is anxious to quickly find "common ground" on so we can turn to the "real" issues.

One would think that since birth control is something virtually everyone uses at some time in their lives, there wouldn't be much of a question. But seeing what's happened in other parts of the world where women's rights are regressing with alarming speed I'm not all that sanguine. It's only female trouble, after all. It's not like it's important.

Update: Some perspective on the issue from TPM.