Despite an onslaught of Republican opposition, Planned Parenthood is showing its support of President Barack Obama’s contraceptive rule.
Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and other conservative figures have strongly voiced their opposition to the Obama administration’s requirement for health insurance to provide birth control for women.
The requirement is extended to all organizations, including Catholic churches. Catholic churches teach their members that artificial contraception is wrong.
After the provision was finalized in January as a part of the president’s 2010 Affordable Health Care Act, Republicans began calling the decision an “attack on religious freedom”.
Their reasoning is that by requiring Catholic churches to provide contraception as a part of their health insurance plans, the Obama administration is not upholding the separation of church and state.
Planned Parenthood is strongly supportive of organizations being required to provide contraception.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the women’s health care organization’s fundraising arm, has been using its Twitter account to gauge the support and opposition of the contraceptive requirement.
Additionally, Public Polling Policy performed a nationwide survey of Catholic and non Catholic voters to gauge support for the contraception rule.
The poll found that a majority 56 percent of the voters polled are in support of a requirement for organizations to provide prescription contraception without additional fees.
The PPP poll also found that 53 percent of voters who identified themselves as Catholic are in support of the requirement. The majority of Republican voters are opposed to the contraceptive rule, at 58 percent.
The poll targeted Catholic voters, as a total of 353 total Catholic voters were surveyed nationwide. PPP conducted the poll between February 3rd and February 5th among 1,085 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
To further enforce their support of Mr. Obama’s contraceptive rule, Planned Parenthood posted the PPP poll to their website under the title “Americans Support Obama on Prescription Birth Control Benefit,” along with a message from their media office supporting a choice for birth control for women.
“We believe that everyone has the right to choose when or whether to have a child, and that every child should be wanted and loved,” wrote Planned Parenthood.
The Obama administration has stated that it is open to discussing the provision with religious leaders who have concerns with providing contraception as a part of their health insurance plans.
On Tuesday White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also commented on the opposition to the contraception rule.
“The President’s interest is in making sure that — on the one side of this balance — is in making sure that all American women, all women here, have access to the same preventive care services,” said Mr. Carney. “He is also concerned about and understands the religious concerns that have been raised and takes seriously the religious convictions that are behind the concerns that have been raised.”
