Conservatives & Contraception

I’ve been trying to figure out what being a conservative Republican is all about as I am a registered Republican. Mitt Romney along with the other candidates attended the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The news reporting he was saying all the right things. He touted being: Pro-Life (meaning anti abortion, Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood), supportive of Traditional Marriage (anti same-sex marriage), in favor of bearing Guns (wherever and whenever you want), a defender of Religion (anti Health Plan requirement for contraceptives), and a protector of the Constitution (implying taking a stand on our first amendment rights). Romney went on to say he did what Conservativism is designed to do: start new businesses and turn around broken ones. Attendees of CPAC said that even though they don’t particularly like Romney, they’ll vote for him over Obama. Well it worked. Romney got 38%, Santorum 31%, Gingrich 15% and Paul 12% of the CPAC votes. Romney also took Maine with 39%, Paul with 36%, Santorum 18% and Gingrich got 6%.

I’m not going into what I’ve already said in previous blogs. I’ll just make the statement that I will not vote for anyone who doesn’t defend our Constitution and Declaration of Independence or have an understanding of what these documents actually mean. I do know that I am not a conservative. You see, I believe that no sex (abstinence) or the use of contraceptives is better than bringing unwanted children into this world of abuse, negligence, improper child labor use, human trafficking, pornography, sexual assault, kidnapping, murder, incurable disease, and I’m sure there’s more. I don’t care what ethnic group, sexual preference, religious organization, or political affiliation a person has as long as they don’t harm someone. I believe that guns have a place and carrying them everywhere is not okay and that evil should be severely punished and not coddled or supported by our laws. I will not be one of those people that twist the language of the Constitution so it suits my purpose and then say I’ll protect it; I will defend the Constitution to ensure that it is applied in accordance to what our forefathers intended.

On February 12 I heard Paul Ryan say Republicans have enough votes to block the proposed accommodation for the issuance of contraceptives; they’re treating our Constitutional rights as revocable privileges from our government and not inalienable rights from our creator and if this is what the President is willing to do in a tough election year – image what he will do in implementing the rest of his health care law after an election. He said the contraceptive accommodation is a distinction without a difference, it’s an accounting trick, it forces the insurance to pay and a lot of Catholic institutions are self insured. I also heard George Stephanopoulos’ round table discussion with George Will and David Ignatius (Washington Post columnists), Donna Brazile (ABC Political Contributor), and Liz Chaney (former State Department official and present Fox News contributor). DB said she’s a practicing Catholic and there is no compromise they have a zero tolerance; sex is for procreation not recreation, abstinence is the only answer. She also thought the Catholic bishops are making a mistake - they want to make sure that no one provides contraceptives and their actions will revive the cultural war that the Republicans want – the war on women’s health; birth control is used for other problems like endometriosis so it’s a health issue not politics. GW said he agreed with Ryan that it’s an accounting trick and this is what liberalism looks like, this is what a progressive state does – it tries to break all the institutions of civil society, all the institutions that mediate between the individual and the state; they have to break them to the saddle of the state, and the Catholic bishops it serves them right as they’re the ones that are really hot for Obama care. LC said nobody is talking about preventing women from getting contraceptives, it’s the opposite -  for political expedience the President was willing to look away from the first amendment, that the freedom of religion was less important than placating their base and that for the President to stand and announce free contraceptives for everybody and that nobody is going to have to pay for this – the insurance companies are going to have to pay for this – does he think that the companies making pills are somehow going to donate their services – this is a problem that gets to the heart of Obama care. DI said – the White House argues that this is a net cost reducer; he said yes the White House probably made a mistake with the original policy but you really get in trouble in politics when you’re tone deaf, don’t listen to criticism but they did make changes (a do-over quickly) and came up with a policy that they can defend.

The insurance companies did say that in the long run they will save money. I don’t agree with GW in that this issue is a liberalist act aimed at destroying institutions because I believe there is no violation of our inalienable rights from our creator as the Catholic Church has already set a precedent for contraception by requiring celibacy of its ordained and abstinence by its followers; to use Ryan’s words this is distinction without a difference. As I’ve already said in a previous blog our laws don’t allow any religion a preference. Information by Public Religion Research Institute showed 84% of Americans support the use of birth control so I don’t think Catholics should get preference with this issue; the 16% are required to request a contraceptive. SmlFrey @ George Stephanopoulus said as a Catholic, the Catholic philosophy on contraception is so old school; time to get with the times.