Birth control policy could undermine Obama's re-election bid

Saturday, February 11, 2012

WASHINGTON, USA (AP) — President Barack Obama declared yesterday he has found a solution to a birth-control uproar that will protect religious liberty but also ensure that women have access to free contraception, as he rushed to defuse an election-year issue that threatened to overtake his administration.

Capping weeks of growing controversy, Obama announced he was backing off a newly announced requirement for religious employers to provide free birth control coverage even if it should run counter to their religious beliefs. Instead, workers at such institutions will be able to get free contraception directly from health insurance companies.

Obama's abrupt shift is an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting election-year nightmare for the White House. The leader of a Roman Catholic organisation and a prominent women's group both expressed initial support for the changes.

Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops across the US had assailed the original policy in Sunday Masses. Republican leaders in Congress promised emergency legislation to overturn Obama's move. The president's rivals in the race for the White House accused him of attacking religion. Prominent lawmakers from Obama's own Democratic party began openly deriding the policy.

The sentiment also was fierce on the other side. Women's groups, liberal religious leaders and health advocates pressed Obama not to cave in on the issue.

The furor has consumed media attention and threatened to undermine Obama's re-election bid just as he was in a stride over improving economic news. Political reality forced the White House to come up with a solution to a complex matter faster than anticipated.

"Religious liberty will be protected and a law that requires free preventative care will not discriminate against women," Obama said in an appearance in the White House briefing room.

"I understand some folks in Washington want to treat this as another political wedge issue. But it shouldn't be. I certainly never saw it that way," Obama said. "This is an issue where people of good will on both sides of the debate have been sorting through some very complicated questions."

Obama's abrupt shift was an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting political nightmare for the White House.

Although the administration originally had given itself more than a year to work out the details of the new birth control coverage requirement for religious employers, the president acknowledged that the situation had become untenable and demanded a swift solution.

Congressional Republicans as well as Republican presidential hopefuls were beating up on Obama relentlessly over the issue, and even Democrats and liberal groups allied with the Catholic church were defecting.

"After the many genuine concerns that have been raised over the last few weeks, as well as, frankly, the more cynical desire on the part of some to make this into a political football, it became clear that spending months hammering out a solution was not going to be an option. That we needed to move this faster," Obama said. He said that he directed the Department of Health and Human Services last week to speed up the process from a matter of months to days.

Women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama's health care law that he insisted must remain. Religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith, however, can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.

The leader of a Catholic organisation and a prominent women's group both expressed initial support for the changes.

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Birth control policy could undermine Obama's re-election bid