GOP Attack on Women's RIghts 2012

By D. DiFrancesco

Rick Santorum

For the last several weeks the President has been attacked by the GOP for requiring all employers to provide free birth control coverage in their insurance offerings.  This of course upset the Catholic Church and in turn gave Romney, Santorum, and the other stooges something to attack Obama on since the economy seems to be improving monthly based on the numbers.  It appears that it offends their "when convenient" sensitivities.  In an attempt to appease the religious right, President Obama modified the mandate to require insurance companies, not employers to offer free birth control in their plans.  This certainly didn't stop the Republicans from claiming the President's desire to trample on religious freedom.  I am of the firm opinion that church needs to be more worried about itself than of the administration.  When reports show that 98% of Catholic women use or have used birth control, this requirement clearly won't have any affect on their congregations one way or another.

This issue should not be an issue at all.  Those devout individuals can remain true to their beliefs by not taking advantage of the added birth control benefit.  While those who are less devout or non-Catholic can enjoy the added coverage.  If the church actually trusted in the faith of their followers, birth control would not be an issue at all.  Their lack of faith is what is truly the problem.  No law that any Congress could put forth can solve this problem, instead it must be solved from within the church itself.

Mitt Romney

As has been mentioned repeatedly over the course of the weeks since this issue was brought into the limelight...women have not been included in the discussion.  Reproductive rights is inherently a women's issue and yet it is men that are at the forefront of the debate.  Taking the right to choose away from women is a tremendous blow to women's rights.  It will set the rights they have gained, and rightfully so, back by decades.  Neither the GOP nor the church has the right to tell a women what she can and can not do with her body.  Their preaching is both outdated and impractical.  We no longer live in an agrarian society.  The need for large families with many children is not a requirement.  In today's economic climate, it is also unaffordable.  The GOP candidates can't have it both ways.  They scream out for cuts to our social programs and yet at the same time they fight programs such as this birth control mandate that will help limit the number of children on the welfare roles.  It makes no sense.

Barack Obama

It seems to me that President Obama has been thinking in practical terms rather than basing his actions on either emotion or religious conviction.  This in no way reflects badly on Obama or his faith contrary to the inflammatory rhetoric that the Republican presidential candidates are spewing in an attempt to energize their bases.

We are witnessing a GOP struggling to find an identity to propel them back into the White House in 2012.  Instead I think we are really watching President Obama skillfully retain the White House and enjoy a second term.  Ultimately I predict that the GOP will self-destruct.  They have no real front runner, and no single candidate that their base can rally behind as a whole.  In the end...Obama 2012.