Public backs Obama in birth control fight By Olivier Knox | The Ticket â 16 hrs ago It's not even close: By a lopsided margin of 66 percent to 26 percent, Americans support President Barack Obama's proposal to require private health insurance plans to cover the full cost of birth control for women, according to a new CBS/New York Times public opinion poll. Rephrasing the question to ask specifically about "religiously affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university," barely moved the needle, to 61 percent to 31 percent. Those numbers, which come with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, are better for Obama than his numbers on foreign policy (50 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove), Afghanistan in particular (51 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove) and are nearly the mirror image of public opinion on his handling of the federal budget deficit, where he loses 32 percent to 59 percent. National polls can understate the political danger of a given issue. Congressional Democrats fretted last week that the firestorm could cost them dearly among blue-collar voters, especially Catholics., in states like Pennsylvania. Some Democrats complained privately that the "culture war" clash drowned out the positive news about the economy. The poll was conducted from Feb. 8 to Feb. 13. It's not clear what impact Obama's proposed "accommodation" to religious institutions will have politically.
Yeah, sort of a no-brainer here. As I said before, I thought it was a great political move by Obama, but I re-thought it out and even though the same good results, it may have been done by accident. Either way, Obama's camp is happy. Even if they just re-stated the obvious, that contraception is accepted in the Country. c
The general public's reaction isn't really important on an issue like this because most people aren't affected by it. There's only one group that cares about this issue. Approximately 25% of US voters are Catholic. To most of the other 75%, this is irrelevant. Last election, Obama carried the Catholic vote by a margin of 55% to 45%. If that were to shift to 50/50 or 45/55, that would cost Obama 2+ million votes, many of them in key election states like Pennslyvania, Ohio and New Jersey.
The Catholic Church officially forbids contraception use, but 98% of Catholic women who have been sexually active have used birth control. http://www.freep.com/article/201202...-including-birth-control-in-health-care-plans
Catholics don't like what they perceive as meddling in the church by the government. A recent poll report on local TV news said that 58% of Catholics in California disapproved of the Obama administration's handling of this issue. That doesn't mean they're all going to vote against him, but it does show that millions of Catholics were unhappy with the adminsitration. A Rassmussen poll taken just two days ago: "While 54 percent of Catholics voted for Obama in the 2008 election, only 35 percent of likely Catholic voters in Rasmussen's latest poll said they were currently backing him in the 2012 race." http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/n...oters-disapprove-of-president-support-romney/ All it takes is a shift of 5-10% of Catholics to add up to millions of votes. This poll suggests the shift could be as much as 20% from the previous election.
The Church is there to provide guidance. They don't make law. Do you break law? How many times a day do you drive over the speed limit? Have you done underage drinking? Because every does these things should the drinking age go lower? Should the speed limits be removed? You cant judge laws or guidance by compliance only. If you are an adult you should know that these laws and the church guidance will usually lead to a healthier life.
That's not how political strategists look at it and they're pretty good at counting votes. They look at whose vote this will change in the upcoming election. In other words, they start with a baseline of which groups voted for whom last time around and then measure the shifts. That's the most accurate way to measure voter support in an upcoming election. Here's how this one is measured: (a) There are very few women who voted against Obama in the last election who will now vote for him in this election because of his stand on birth control; so he picks up few, if any, votes. (b) It appears that there are now millions of Catholics who voted for him in the last election who will now vote against him. Statistically, this one works against Obama.
maybe Catholic women don't like what they perceive as meddling in their lives by church government. maybe they are tired of old white men who wear funny dresses telling them what to do and are voting by their actions. ignoring church mandates and using birth control.
healthier lives? if you took the time to think you would realize that church mandates against birth control have caused misery and death world wide.