1st vote looms on Obama birth control policy

[March 01, 2012]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is considering GOP legislation aimed at rolling back President Barack Obama's policy on birth control coverage.

At issue is a measure sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri that would allow employers and insurers to opt out of provisions in Obama's health care law to which they object on religious or moral grounds. That includes the recently rewritten requirement that insurers cover the cost of birth control, even for religiously affiliated employers whose faith forbids contraception.

"The word `contraception' is not in (the legislation) because it's not about a specific procedure," Blunt said. "It's about a faith principle that the First Amendment guarantees."

But Democrats, trying this election year to hold onto support from female and independent voters, said the measure was really an effort to erode women's rights generally and access to contraception in particular.

"When the other side tries so hard to claim this debate isn't contraception, that's how you know this debate is precisely about contraception," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

For both parties, the debate and Thursday's expected vote were efforts to rouse their staunchest supporters.

Late Wednesday, a slate of Republican centrists appeared uncertain how they would vote on the measure.

"It's much broader than I could support," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said on MSNBC just after announcing she was dropping her re-election bid. "I think we should focus on the issue of contraceptives and whether or not it should be included in a health insurance plan and what requirements there should be."

Some Republicans worried privately that the focus on contraception risks losing track of the top concern among voters this year: the economy.

Under pressure from Catholic bishops and others, Obama last month rewrote the policy slightly to shift the cost of birth control from employers to their insurers. Republicans called that an accounting trick.

A majority of Americans support the use of contraceptives. The public is generally in favor of requiring birth control coverage for employees of religiously affiliated employers, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll Feb. 8-13. The survey found that 61 percent favor the mandate, while 31 percent oppose it. Even Catholics, whose church strongly opposed the recent government mandate, support the requirement at about the same rate as all Americans.

[Associated Press; By LAURIE KELLMAN]

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