Rights take center stage
Well, that was rather a dazzling piece of political theater.
Last week’s brouhaha over insurance coverage for contraceptives should be up for some Tony Awards. What a production, complete with spectacular acting, and serious scenery-chewing. And the sets! How did they recreate the 1960s so convincingly? There was even that thrilling gun-going-off-in-the-third-act thing, but luckily nobody was seriously hurt: The president just grazed his own foot.
Here in Massachusetts, the show was especially riveting. It began over a new Obama administration rule which would require all health insurance plans – including those available from Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, which employ and serve non-Catholics – to offer the option of free birth control.
A lot of people freaked out over this. Even though the rule exempted Catholic churches themselves. Republicans seized on the issue, casting the rule as an assault on religious liberty, and President Obama as a godless secularist.
The guys who usually bloviate about abortion turned their attention to contraception, which is where they were always headed anyway. They dragged everybody into the way-back machine with them. So, we’re fighting about the Pill. In 2012. While we’re at it, let’s demand The Beatles get haircuts.
Catholic bishops declared war. In a letter to churches last Sunday, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said the rule “strikes at a fundamental right to religious liberty.’’ Here is the chewy part: “We Catholics . . . must be prepared either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees,’’ he wrote, echoing bishops across the country.
This was mostly special effects: O’Malley was fulminating over a rule that has been in effect in Massachusetts for 10 years. A 2002 law requires that all health insurance cover contraceptives. Like the Obama regulation, it exempts churches, but includes employees of Catholic-affiliated entities. Catholic churches didn’t like it, but they haven’t pulled employees’ health insurance over it. And 27 other states have similar laws.
But here was an opportunity for the bishops, whose flock fled them on contraception long ago, to take back some control. Besides, how could they not make a huge fuss, what with so many Republicans madly jumping up and down?
Which brings us to Mitt Romney, the Meryl Streep of politics: Is there any role our former governor won’t embrace? Romney was in high dudgeon over the rule, and the need to fight it. He didn’t fight it when he was governor, however. Though he opposed mandates of all kinds in his health care overhaul, he never targeted contraceptive coverage, or invoked religious liberty, the way he is now.
But, like Streep channeling the Iron Lady, Romney became freedom’s defender, touting the fact that, as governor, he vetoed a 2005 bill requiring Catholic hospitals to issue emergency contraceptives to rape victims. He did this even though he supported emergency contraceptives for victims when he ran for governor (as an abortion rights candidate) in 2002. Indeed, in 2005, he said he believed in his “heart of hearts’’ that rape victims should have access to it. Which is why his performance isn’t convincing many now.
In Friday’s third act, the president appeared on stage, having been battered for the entire play, and gave in to the bishops. Catholic hospitals and universities won’t have to provide expanded contraceptives coverage after all. Women will still get it, but the insurance companies will pay. He’s casting it as a win-win, but there’s no way the president will be taking a bow here – not with the rest of the cast pointing to that wound in his foot.
Such a great show. Well, not if you’re a woman who believes you should be able to control what happens to your own body. For us, it was way too retro for comfort. But who cares what we think? Cue the finale!
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