Following in the footsteps of Michael Gerson's November 14 Washington Post column, which ignored the opinions of American Catholics to accuse the Obama administration of “anti-Catholic bias,” right-wing bloggers are pressuring the Obama administration to allow all employers to offer insurance that does not provide any coverage for birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

For instance, National Review Online blogger Kathleen Jean Lopez attacked progressives for “insisting that the White House not succumb to Catholic backward thinking over contraception.” She also asked “How much of a problem has it been to convince people that President Obama's signature legislation is a threat to Catholics and others with so many prominent Catholics in the administration.”

Not to be outdone, LifeSiteNews cited a National Catholic Reporter blog post to push the idea that “if Obama fails to widen the religious exemption, he can kiss away any real effort to win over Catholic voters in 2012 -- including those who supported him in 2008 despite his pro-abortion position.”

But what do Catholics really think about whether health insurance should provide contraceptive coverage? According to a 2009 poll conducted for Catholics for Choice, 63 percent of American Catholics said that “health insurance policies -- whether they are private or government -- should cover ... contraception, such as birth control pills.”

[Belden Russonello & Stewart, September 2009]

Catholics for Choice has also found that “even among those who attend church once a week or more, 83% of sexually active Catholic women use a form of contraception that is banned by the Vatican,” that 69 percent of Catholic women have used birth control pills, and that 88 percent of Catholics have used condoms.