QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“I think there is one person who should make decisions on your health care, and that person is you,” he continued. “I don’t think a college student in Colorado Springs should have to choose between textbooks or the preventive care she needs.”

–President Barack Obama in Colorado

Okay, but if she HAS to choose, should she go for the textbooks or the contraception? Homer’s Trojans…or….Of course, this is a phony dilemma. Contraception is inexpensive and widely available, often at the college infirmary. Even in the dark ages, when I was an undergraduate, girls managed to get The Pill and quite easily, despite a generally more uptight ethic about sex.  

Leaving aside religious questions about contraception, I can’t believe Republicans are letting the Obama campaign get away with this demagoguery. We have affluent feminists demanding that the government mandate contraception without co-pays and nobody is laughing? The GOP has no plans to mess with your fun, but should Catholic employers, who regard contraception as wrong, be forced to provide coverage for it? 

If we are going to mandate services without a cop-pay, I’d opt for something else. How about free tonsillectomies for poor kids? Religious organizations would probably not be up in arms over such a mandate. (Oh wait, the doctors might amputate their feet to earn bigger fees.) But, seriously, how can free contraception be an “issue” of earth-shaking importance, at a time when the economy is tanking, and not produce gales of laughter?

While I would like to see more ridicule of this “issue,” I do think that the Romney campaign has rolled out an excellent ad that responds well to the religious freedom aspect. The ad correctly portrays the HHS contraception mandate that seeks to force religious employers to violate their consciences as a war on religion.

Unlike Sandra Fluke’s absurd claim that the burden of a co-pay for contraception will put her in the poor house, the war on religious liberty is no laughing matter.