Time to End Political Attacks on Contraception

With his announcement on Friday, President Obama affirmed that we must protect women's health and the religious freedom of all.

The president's effort to work with all sides to find the middle ground has garnered support from groups ranging from Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Woman to the Catholic Health Association, Catholic Charities USA and Catholics United. With organizations and individuals across the political spectrum expressing support for the administration's move, now is the time to put an end to the political attacks on women's access to contraception.

But some people just don't know how to take yes for an answer. They don't understand what a true compromise is.

Speaker Boehner and Republicans in Congress continue to inject a right-wing political agenda into the issue of women's health care.

It began with an effort to defund family planning programs -- and shut down the government -- over politics. Then several weeks ago, we saw a move to limit women's access to life-saving breast cancer screenings -- once again, over a narrow political agenda.

And now, congressional Republicans continue to position themselves outside the mainstream.

As the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday, they are "reluctant" to let go of the birth control issue.

But this is the 21st century.

Ninety-nine percent of women, including 98 percent of Catholic women have used birth control. And 77 percent of Catholic women voters support requiring insurance plans to cover contraception for free.

While we will always stand up and fight to make sure politics and an ideological agenda don't come between a woman and her health care, now is the time to move on.

Let's move on to making sure our families are healthy. Let's move on to growing our economy. And let's move on to creating jobs and getting people back to work.

The agreement forged by the president should allow us to do just that.