“The Republicans want to take us… to the Dark Ages again… when women were property that you could easily control.” Even Planned Parenthood weighed in with its own whopper. Under this amendment, “your boss” will decide “which prescriptions you can get filled.”

 

FRC Washington Update

 

It’s a good thing there wasn’t a polygraph test during yesterday’s Senate debate. If liberals like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had been wired up, the machine would have short-circuited on the chamber floor. While Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) tried to bring back the status quo on conscience rights, the Left amped up its attack with one piece of fiction after another. “Mr. President, if this amendment passes,” Sen. Schumer claimed, “it would ban contraception coverage for women in America.” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) took a medieval approach. “The Republicans want to take us… to the Dark Ages again… when women were property that you could easily control.” Even Planned Parenthood weighed in with its own whopper. Under this amendment, “your boss” will decide “which prescriptions you can get filled.”

One by one, the far Left littered the Senate floor with lies about Blunt’s amendment. Thursday’s distortions were so epic that the Washington Post spent three pages exposing the untruths. “Schumer’s over-the-top rhetoric,” editors said, “ooze hyperbole and alarmist language.” The newspaper gave him three Pinocchios for “significant factual error.” The Post repeated twice, “The Blunt amendment said nothing about prohibiting birth control, so women could purchase it in the future on their own or with the help of supplemental insurance, as they often do to this day.” Contraception has never been “free” before. Does that mean women went without it? Of course not. The Post had equally harsh words for the Senator from New Jersey. “Lautenberg’s comments are particularly exaggerative…” If letting religious groups opt out of health benefits for moral reasons takes America back to the “Dark Ages,” Josh Hicks says, “then this particular anti-women attitude persisted right up until today, since the rule in question hasn’t taken effect.”

He’s absolutely right. If America was turning back the clock with Blunt’s amendment, then it would have been turning the clock back to last month when this measure was the status quo. Despite all the misinformation churned out by the Left, Sen. Blunt deserves a lot of credit for making the vote (51-48) as close as it was. With the exception of Sen. Olympia Snowe (“R”-Maine), Republicans stood their ground in the face of a caucus that views the truth as optional. Still, Sen. Blunt and others aren’t giving up. “It won’t be over until the administration figures out how to accommodate people’s religious views as it relates to these new mandates,” the Missouri leader told reporters. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was no closer to throwing in the towel. “This is tyranny,” he said. “This is discrimination masquerading as compassion, and I’m going to fight it.”

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is just as stubborn. During a House Appropriations hearing, Attorney General Eric Holder said he is prepared to send the administration’s “legion of lawyers” to the mandate’s defense. For now, the battle will shift to the House, where members have been busy grilling the President’s team. In the Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) took on Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The Diocese of Columbus has many more than just 100 employees, all of whom, when they got hired, knew what health care they were getting. And the bishop and I talked about the President so clearly saying, ‘If you like [the health plan] you have, you can keep it.’ He said that over and over, many times. My question to you is: If they refuse the mandate, refuse to violate their First Amendment rights, refuse to violate their religious beliefs and refuse to pay the fine, what consequences, as an employer, will Bishop Campbell face?” “I have no idea,” Sebelius stammered back. “The hypothetical–I mean, I can–if you want to submit that in writing, I’ll get you an answer in writing.”

FRC’s Jeanne Monahan could have answered the question. She and a dozen other women responded to the Democrats’ propaganda in a press conference sponsored by Concerned Women for America. “The other side is trying to make this about access to contraception and it just isn’t true! The U.S. provided close to two billion in government funds for family planning in fiscal year 2011. And the liberal Guttmacher Institute reports that nine out of ten insurance plans already cover contraceptives. This is about forcing the small number of religious groups that are not providing these drugs and devices to do so even though it is a matter of forcing them to violate their consciences.”

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