Contraception controversy consumes D.C., campaign

Congressional Democrats and Republicans escalated their rhetorical war Thursday over a pending federal rule requiring religiously affiliated employers to provide full contraception coverage to women -- one day after hints emerged of a possible compromise between the White House and conservative religious critics.

Numerous rank-and-file Democrats urged the White House not to back away from its support for the rule, while Republicans demanded a full retreat.

"It is time for the extreme right wing to stop playing football with women's health," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-New York. "My colleagues and I stand in solidarity with American women who have waited decades for equity in contraceptive coverage. We have fought for too long."

"I woke up this morning in the 21st century, not in the Middle Ages," said. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado. "Family planning and birth control (are) an essential part of women's health."

But Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the issue is about the rights of churches, not women.

"This has to do with the right of a church not to spend their moral resources in a way that's inconsistent with their faith," the former Pennsylvania senator, a staunch conservative Catholic, told CNN's "John King USA."

"We're not talking about denying women the access to contraception," he added. "They can go and get it. But we're talking about having a church of which they happen to chose to work for and they know their position in working for them. You're now forcing them as a condition of employing people to pay for something that again is a grievous moral wrong."

And Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, called the proposed rule "an attack by the federal government on religious freedom for everyone in our country and our rights of conscience."

"It must not stand and it will not stand if we are going to keep the freedoms that we love and cherish in this country," Foxx said.

The question of whether institutions with religious ties should be required to offer insurance plans covering birth control and the so-called morning after pill, among other things, hits a number of political hot buttons. Liberal groups defend the requirement on grounds of gender equality in health care; conservatives consider it a violation of the First Amendment and an infringement on religious liberty.

Republican leaders have repeatedly blasted the administration's decision, raising the issue's profile on both Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail.

Speaking on a Cincinnati radio show Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said the Obama administration hopes to find a middle ground that would allow women to get insurance coverage for contraception while allowing an institution like the Roman Catholic Church, which opposes birth control, "to be consistent with its teachings."

"What I'm making a commitment is there's going to be a significant attempt to work this out, and there's time to do that," Biden said. "And as a practicing Catholic, you know, I am of the view that this can be worked out and should be worked out."

Biden told radio station WLW that there has been "a lot of misunderstanding" about the rule. "There's not enough focus on the fact that we've decided that there's a year to work this out so we can accommodate it," he said.

While churches themselves are exempt from the rule, hospitals and schools with religious affiliations would have to comply. The new policy is set to go into effect on August 1, though religious groups would have a yearlong extension to implement the rule.

Published polls show a slight majority of U.S. Catholics actually favor the requirement. But the Catholic media network EWTN sued the federal government Thursday, seeking to stop the mandate's implementation and get it ruled unconstitutional.

"We had no other option but to take this to the courts," EWTN President Michael Warsaw said. "We are taking this action to defend not only ourselves but also to protect other institutions -- Catholic and non-Catholic, religious and secular -- from having this mandate imposed upon them."

Two other lawsuits have also been filed seeking to block the mandate. All three lawsuits are backed by the Becket Fund, a conservative religious legal organization.

Some political analysts think the controversy will cost President Barack Obama votes in politically critical states like Pennsylvania and Ohio in November, while others insist it will ultimately hurt Republicans with suburban women.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that there was a deep internal administration split on the matter, with Biden and former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley warning Obama about the possibility of negative political repercussions in swing states, But several female aides -- including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- urged the president to move forward with the rule, Bloomberg said.