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Hyp–Hyp–Hypocrisy!

From Saturday’s NY Times: “Although Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York has been leading the national fight against requiring Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and charities to cover birth control in their health insurance plans for employees and students, some Catholic institutions in his own diocese and others throughout New York State have for 10 years been complying with state law mandating precisely that coverage. The state began requiring contraception coverage in 2002, and Catholic institutions, after losing a court battle over the issue, have followed the law. . . . ‘We currently follow New York State law,’ Mr. Howe [Fordham’s director of communications] said. ‘For employees and students, we provide insurance coverage that includes contraception. That’s the law.'”

Governor of New York State in 2002? Republican George Pataki.

It’s pretty obvious the Catholic bishops’ opposition to the Obama’s administration’s policy of requiring contraceptive coverage is really all about opportunism, and trying to give President Obama a hard time.

Such hypocrisy.

Hey, It Is the Twenty-First Century

Feb. 10 Update: I think the White House’s accommodation on this issue–announced a few hours ago–is smart. Though the right-wing opposition to contraception won’t be quelled, it should accomplish the goal of all American women having equal access to contraceptives, with insurers absorbing the cost rather than employers, if the latter claim a religious objection to providing them. Although the health insurance lobby will object, insurers should accept this because it’s preventative care, always less expensive than the alternative, such as a pregnancy or the cost of an abortion. Politically, this will force the many right-wing politicians who’ve been raising a flurry about the administration’s policy to show their true colors–whether their objection is really one founded on religious freedom, as they’ve claimed, or simply stems from the regressive urge to block women’s access to reproductive choice.

I recognize that progress in human history isn’t inevitable, but we are living in the 21st century–oral contraceptives have been widely able since the 1970s, and we shouldn’t be going backwards. Yet you wouldn’t know it judging by how willing (mostly male) politicians are to take medical advances away from women that have been available for decades. As Irin Carmon wrote in Salon this week,

“Why are we still arguing about contraception in 2012? The Catholic bishops are free to make as many incendiary comments as they want, and they have, but that doesn’t mean that pundits should assume there’s a constituency beyond a bunch of celibate men and likely Republican voters that is actually going to be swayed by this. New polling on the topic shows, for example, that ‘a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters … favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents.’” // more. . .