Do Republicans really want to make the 2012 election about birth control? If the economy keeps adding jobs at the rate it has for the past few months, is the Obama Administration's "repeal of religious liberty" and the scandal of "sterilization"--sometimes, in an Orwellian master stroke, referred to as "vasectomies"--the back-up plan? Is that all they got?
I had not realized that birth control was so controversial. Insurers, if they are interested in turning a profit, love covering it, as it's considerably cheaper than pre-natal care, c-sections, vaccinations, and 20 gazillion strep tests. That it enhances the quality of life for its practitioners is generally denied only by crackpots, like the robed and virginal septuagenarians at the top of the Catholic Church hierarchy. Surveying the Catholic families of my acquaintance, I detect a suspiciously reasonable number of nicely spaced children. In fact, American Catholic women have on average the same number of kids as other American women. The teachings of the Catholic Church on this matter are ignored by American Catholics.
Apparently the exceptions are running for President. According to Rick Santorum, contraception is "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." Perhaps this statement wan't meant to be examined too closely, but it occurs to me that people indulging themselves in the "things" he probably has in mind don't have to worry about unwanted pregnancies, sperm swimming up fallopian tubes not being an offshoot of their pursuits. And what of the nice heterosexual couples interested in official, Santorum-approved sex acts? Is the trouble with them that they tend to get a hankering on all different days of the month? His general approach to the topic reminds me of what someone said about why Puritans opposed bear-baiting--they were okay with cruelty to animals but hated the way that people were enjoying themselves.
Santorum appears to have an ally in Mitt Romney, who in one of the debates said of the Supreme Court's decision in the Griswold case, which struck down a law prohibiting the sale of contraceptives to married couples, "I don't think they decided that correctly." Of course, at some point in his career Romney has been your ally, too, no matter where you stand, even though he may not be now. Now he's trying to appeal to Republican primary voters and caucus attendees, and for that you need to be as "out there" as the old Catholic guys in funny hats.
