The American Debate: Obama getting a boost from GOP's stance on birth control

It's hard to fathom why the Republicans would want to launch a sustained assault on birth control, align themselves with the most conservative voices in the Catholic Church, and thereby risk alienating women voters in November. But, hey, if that's how they want to play it, President Obama is only too happy to reap the benefits.

I've been puzzled for weeks by all the talk about how Obama has supposedly blown it with Catholic voters after requiring that many Catholic institutions offer free birth control in their employee insurance plans. Church leaders are naturally upset, but they don't speak for most Catholics on the issue of contraception. And Republicans, eager to gin up anything against Obama now that the economy is improving, are naturally cranking up the hyperbole about a supposed "war on religion," but they, too, seem blind to how most Catholic women conduct their private lives.

The nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health in America, reported last year that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used some form of contraception. That figure is not a misprint, and church leaders never mention it. Not even Rick Santorum - who lectures us that sex is moral only in the making of babies - has bothered to dispute it.

Republicans may want to splash their faces with this cold water: In the newly released New York Times/CBS News poll, when Catholics were asked whether they "support or oppose a recent federal requirement that private health insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for their female patients," 67 percent voiced support and only 25 percent voiced opposition. They were in sync with swing-voting independents (64-26) and women in general (72-20). And when Catholics were asked, more specifically, whether such a requirement should apply to religiously affiliated hospitals and universities, 57 percent said yes and only 36 percent said no.

That sentiment should not be a surprise, given the realities of life that have been overlooked in the current uproar. The largest Catholic college in America, DePaul University, routinely offers birth control coverage among its employee benefits. So does Marquette University, in accordance with Wisconsin law. Indeed, 28 states already require that insurance companies cover birth control for all employers; some of those states don't exempt any religious employers, not even churches.