Sex, freedom, religion, women’s rights, motherhood, birth control, and politics.

It’s a volatile mix.

And right now there’s a growing drumbeat of attacks on universal access to full coverage for crucial contraceptive health care that cannot be ignored:

• The Panel: You’ve likely seen the picture that shocked our nation last week: An all male “expert” witness panel testifying about birth control before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
• The Bishops: You’ve also likely read about the Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders objecting to the part of the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) that calls for ending co-pays on birth control and other preventive health services. The end result was a compromise exempting religious employers who object to contraception from paying for birth control directly, with insurance companies picking up the cost. But the Catholic Bishops don’t like the compromise either, and now they’re taking the fight farther.
• The Candidates: And, you’ve likely heard the comments of Presidential candidates attempting to use women’s health for their own electoral gain. Check out this quote by one of the current Presidential candidate frontrunners, Rick Santorum,

“One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea … Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s okay … contraception’s okay.’ It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal … but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen.”

• The Aspirin: And I’m sure you didn’t miss Foster Friess, the man behind a Super PAC for Rick Santorum, saying in an interview on MSNBC that, “Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. An aspirin joke. That’s all he’s got when there’s so much at stake?

Reliable birth control that permits women to responsibly control how many children to have, and when to have them, has been nothing short of revolutionary–not just for women and mothers, but for our country as a whole. It’s improved the health of women and their families, as well as given women and mothers increased access to economic and political power unlike any other time in history.