The Culture Wars Resume

Just when everybody thought this election would be about the economy it has become a resumption of the Culture Wars.

Democrats have seized upon the issue of birth control as an “Attack on Women” and it may be of greater concern to women than to men, but men too are effected by any attempt to restrict birth control. Whether in the married state or absent matrimony, men are very much concerned about impregnating a woman, whether she is a wife, or a girl friend. In the married state additional unwanted children place just as much of an economic burden on the husband as on the wife and if single, what man wants to be responsible for an offspring which was neither intended nor desired.

To be sure a female is more immediately effected, since it is her body that carries the fetus, but to pretend that only women are effected is to blind oneself to reality.

But what has suddenly brought this to the fore. The media has made it appear that the ruling by the Obama Administration requiring all insurance policies to cover birth control is strictly about insurance coverage, and Republicans want it to appear as though it were a battle over freedom of religion. But it is neither! 


The issue was brought to the fore when Komen decided to defund Planned Parenthood. But that simply brought it above the radar. As I pointed out in my post "Contraception, Abortion and Komen," it was as early as last year that the “House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget and in New Jersey, Planned Parenthood was completely defunded to the tune of  $7.4 million. More recently on March 5, 2012, Newsweek reported that Texas was defunding Planned Parenthood. (The New York Times reported the same thing two days later.)

In none of these cases was there even a pretense that religion was an issue. And besides since when can religion override public policy. Would Rick Santorum or even Mitt Romney take issue with the Supreme Court when it ruled as long ago as 1878 in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (8 Otto.) 145 that members of the Mormon religion could not claim exemption on religious grounds from the prohibition against polygamy, holding that “the Free Exercise Clause … protect(s) religious beliefs, not religious practices that run counter to neutrally enforced … laws.”

Would anyone argue that a physician, who is a Christian Scientist, can withhold medical care because it is against his religion, and for obvious reasons the argument that a pharmacist can refuse to dispense birth control pills on religious grounds has also been soundly rejected.

But the fundamentalists in the Republican Party (and I prefer to call them Fundamentalists rather then Evangelicals, because there are many Evangelicals who do not have Fundamentalist beliefs—Jimmy Carter it should be remembered is a born again Christian) want to impose their believes on the rest of us, and work toward a Christian theocracy.

They are now so dominant in the Republican Party that the Party in the Senate voted almost unanimously (Olympia Snow dissented) for the Blunt amendment, which according to the Washington Post “would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement. And it would have allowed such employers to do so in the case of not only contraception but any health service required by the 2010 health-care law.”

Romney when asked about his position and worried about his general election chances first offered:

“I'm not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, I'm not going there.”

But when attacked by Santorum quickly fell in line with a spokesperson explaining:

“Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing. Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith...”

And when Rush Limbaugh attacked a Georgetown University student who supported a requirement for health insurance to cover birth control, calling her a “slut” who “wants to be paid to have sex… (and that) she was “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk”; and (that) she was “having sex so frequently that she can’t afford all the birth-control pills that she needs.” Romney was so outraged that he said: 

“It's not the language I would have used." 

The Republican House speaker through a spokesperson expressed his outrage with 

“The use of those words was inappropriate.” 

George Will, the outspoken Republican intellectual, commented:

“Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff…and it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

But just possibly the Republican dilemma can be summarized by a letter that appeared in my local Newspaper, the Fort Lee Suburbanite:

An issue has been created where none existed. This takes the spotlight off of the economy, price of gas and unemployment. Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable. That is why this is a "non-issue." The powers that be are trying to blur the lines between abortion (infanticide) and birth control.

Because this is a contentious topic, women are being fed like sheep by the "wise" wolves. They do this under the guise of "women's rights." Birth control is a private matter. If your religion forbids it… it is between you, your conscience and God ... not you and the President of the United States or Congress. We follow our consciences everyday to do good and evil.

Why is that "cafeteria Catholics" do not make an issue of the other teachings of the Church? Yet birth control sends them into frenzy. We break the Commandments everyday. When the clerk at the supermarket charges you for red cabbage (at 29¢ a pound) instead of radicchio (at $4.99 a pound) do you tell her she made a mistake? No? That is stealing. Are you honest when filing your taxes? No? Mute point! We are all sinners. Look deeply and you will find this to be true, whether you gossip and ruin someone's reputation or tell a lie - look at those who govern. Too bad the Pinocchio factor doesn't work or small noses would be quite scarce in Washington D.C.

Let us all stop this chest thumping and get on with the issues that are important to the future of the United States.

To which I responded with the following Letter to the Editor:

Facts can be inconvenient! 

                     
Once again, as so many times in the past, I find myself writing in response to a Letter to the Editor, that treats facts as just an inconvenience. Get Back to Important Issues, which appeared in your March 2 edition, does that in spades. 

                     
The writer asserts, “Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable.” If that were true the Supreme Court would not have had to strike down a Connecticut law, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that did exactly that. As to availability, that has been, and continues to be a problem for disadvantaged women to this day. That is why Planned Parenthood is so important. Planned Parenthood spends a $1 billion a year providing services to poor and middle class women throughout the US, many of whom are married, but cannot afford the expense of additional children, or have other gynecological needs. 

                  
But what we are witnessing is a concerted war on contraception through defunding. Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget. Fortunately the Democratic Senate refused to go along. New Jersey under the leadership of our Governor, Chris Christie, defunded Planned Parenthood completely to the tune of  $7.4 million. Our President, conscious of the crucial need to provide gynecological services to all women, has made such services available by providing that they be covered in all health insurance policies. 

                     
It is definitely not a non-issue. 

                        

But the letter writer goes further and describes abortion as infanticide. If it were infanticide it would be murder and it would make one third of all women in the US, who have had at least one abortion in their lives, into murderers. That was never the law even before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which empowered women to have control over their own bodies. 

                        

What is at stake is the right of people in general, and women in particular, to be free of the dictates of their government, and not to have the religious views of others imposed upon them. This is the essence of liberty, and the separation of church and state. It is the essence of our Bill of Rights. 

                        

It is definitely not a non-issue.

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