Obama Blinks on Birth Control

Swell: White House to Announce Contraception Rule 'Accommodation' for Religious Organizations.

With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups.

Adding cowardice upon cowardice—caving, and announcing it in the Friday News Hole.

One source familiar with the decision described the accommodation as "Hawaii-plus," insisting that it's better than the Hawaii plan — for both sides.

In Hawaii the employer is responsible for referring employees to places where they can obtain the contraception; Catholic leaders call that material cooperation with evil. But what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization strongly opposed to that care in order to obtain it.

Let's be clear about what this means: An additional burden is being placed on women to accommodate the bullshit objections of a vocal minority who are playing politics with religion to complain about a policy the central mandate of which has been law for over a decade.

All of this "religious freedom" malarkey is the invocation of false ethics by some of the most unethical, cynical, opportunistic jerks in the country. This isn't an issue of "religious freedom." They're forcing Obama's hand, seeing if they can get him to throw women's healthcare and equality under the bus again.

And he just blinked.

UPDATE: The administration's position is that it's really no big deal because women will still get free contraception coverage—women who are employed by religious institutions will just get it directly from their insurers rather than through their employers. I still have some grave concerns.