Can Catholic Bishops Sway Obama?

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Pro-choice women took a collective sigh of relief when President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010. This required health insurance companies to pay for preventative care. Our president essentially saved lives by passing this act. It's required that women have access to preventative care such as mammograms, contraception and even domestic violence counseling. However, the Affordable Care Act has a religious exemption. This gives churches, including the Catholic church, a way to circumvent this act. Giving them that little bit makes them want to push the boundaries of that exemption. Thus, when President Obama took a meeting with Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it made people a bit concerned. 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which of course is all men, would like to not have to subsidize the fornication of employees of Catholic affiliated hospitals. Yes, you heard that right. They want to stop unmarried people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, from getting it on when they are off the clock, if they work for an affiliated hospital.

This whole thing is being done under the argument of religious liberty. It is ridiculous that this religious liberty should trump women's rights to healthcare, mammograms and contraception. Funding contraception helps prevent abortions, which is a serious no-no among devout Catholics. It's odd that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are against abortion yet are using a religious exemption to block funding for contraception. It's true that the Catholic edict states that contraception is not allowed. However, only two percent of sexually active Catholic women have not used some form of birth control.

After the meeting with President Obama, Archbishop Timothy Nolan let it slip that he thought that he and the president had a productive meeting and that he had faith that they could reach some form of compromise or understanding. Listen, our president, Barack Obama, is not remotely likely to appease them on this. He's a politician. Obama has to meet with various interest groups or risk losing those votes. I can't predict the future but I know that the president had to meet with them to at least hear them out. The Catholic Bishops will just have to move on to denying women basic human rights in some other way.