Obama's Miscalculation On The Birth Control/Abortion Mandate

Unless you're a liberal Catholic, most of the political left hates the Catholic Church. They hate the Church's stand on both gays and abortion. Then, too, there's the results of a recent poll done by the Public Religion Research Institute that concluded that 98% of Catholic women used birth control. So, its no wonder that Obama went ahead with the ObamaCare mandate that any Catholic institution that hires non-Catholic employees must provide free contraception as part of their health insurance policies.

So, in one fell swoop, Obama thought he had scored a political double play. First of all, he decided that by making contraception free of co-pays and deductibles, he would be able to gain back many of the female voters who had turned away from him in the last 3 years. At the same time, he was able to secure his liberal base by forcing the Catholic Church to provide both contraceptive services and, even, abortion through free access to the morning after pill. And, I am quite sure that Obama calculated little or no backlash since most Catholic women and their spouses practice birth control.

But, what Obama didn't count on was the fact that his actions would be seen as a Constitutional challenge to the freedom of religion as specified in the First Amendment. Consequently, the Catholic Church, as well as other religions, blew-back strongly on this decision because they understood that if Obama is able to subjugate religion in this case, any and all other freedoms of religion would be at risk going forward. Furthermore, by adding abortion therapies to the mandate, Obama offended more than just Catholics who are strongly against abortion. At a minimum, Obama may have offended the 46% of this country who claim to be pro-life. Then, too, of the remaining 54% who claim to be pro-choice, more than a third of those only believe that abortion should be performed in cases of rape, incest, and to save the mother's life.

Obviously, Obama is now in an untenable position. He can't rescind his decision without offending his non-Catholic political base. If he allows his decision to stand, he may be in serious reelection trouble. Of course, there have been feeble attempts to defend his position by claiming that 98% of Catholics believe in birth control. But, with freedom of religion at jeopardy and abortion being thrown into the mix, it really doesn't matter how many Catholics practice contraception. Let's face it, Obama miscalculated this one from the get-go.