Will Obama's Thanksgiving Gift to Catholic Bishops Be a Tax on Women's Health Care?

Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Women's groups working to save coverage of women's health care in the president's health reform plan are concerned that President Obama will cave as early as this weekend to demands by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (271 clerics, all men) to eliminate coverage of birth control without a co-pay for women who work in Catholic institutions, including hospitals and social service agencies.

The reason? The president seems to think he "owes" the bishops for their help with passage of health reform.

Really?  See... I thought this president was elected primarily by the hard work and support of women, Latinos, African Americans, and young people. And the data back me up. Young voters and Latinos were credited with giving Obama a "commanding victory" in 2008 and, according to post-election analysis, unmarried women were an "even greater source of support." From USA Today:

Unmarried women—a group that includes single, separated, divorced, or widowed women—voted for Obama over Republican opponent John McCain by a whopping 70 to 29 percent in yesterday's election, according to numbers released today by Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonpartisan organization.

Female voters made up 53 percent of all voters responsible for Obama's victory in 2008.

Selling Out the Base?

Moreover, groups representing many millions of women throughout the country worked tirelessly -- exhaustively -- for well over a year to support the president's health reform initiative. They did this even when women lost benefits in the process, supporting the president and able in the end to point at least to gains in coverage of fundamental preventive care such as birth control without a co-pay as a victory.

Now, a president who doesn't seem to be able to resist pressure to cave on any number of key policy issues is considering actually further diminishing this victory in a kind of bait and switch--promising women they would not lose coverage, but in fact by caving to the bishops, taking away coverage millions of women already have.

This is a tax on women. Birth control without insurance coverage can run as much as $600.00 per year. Without consistent access to birth control, women face constant risk of unintended pregnancy, abrogating their fundamental rights to plan their families and make decisions about how many children to have and when; to decide about their own educational and economic paths; to safeguard their own and their family's health.  Such a tax will of course fall most heavily on low-income women, and therefore most heavily on Latina, African American, and Native American women who already make up a disproportionate share of this economic group.

This is a tax on women, one many groups expect the president may levy as soon as this weekend... because, you know, a holiday weekend is the best time to engage in an act of capitulation and have it get less press attention.

Would Obama Allow Bishops in His Bedroom?

I am of the mind and practice that, no matter who you are, an individual's sex life, their sexual orientation, their contraceptive practices, fertility goals, pregnancy terminations and so forth are off limits for public discussion as long as we are talking about legal activities between or by consenting adults involving no form of coercion.  It's really not my (or your) business.

That is, unless you are a politician, lobbyist, media, religious or other public figure who uses other people's sex lives to advance your own political or religious goals. And especially if you are among those figures listed above and you claim moral superiority over others for political gain. Then your own life is open to scrutiny and is a legitimate part of the conversation.