Democrats indicated Tuesday they plan to double down in their “war on women” theme and their attacks on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby religious-freedom case.
Several senators said their party would introduce a bill to overturn the result in the Hobby Lobby case by requiring that businesses provide insurance coverage for birth control even if their owners have religious objections to contraception.
Such a bill would effectively amend the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, on which the justices relied to rule against the Health and Human Services Department’s mandate under the Obamacare law.
And on Tuesday evening, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a blast email urging recipients to sign a petition demanding “Tell the Supreme Court: Protect Women’s Health Care Rights!” and linking to a page soliciting names and an email address for one of the party’s fundraising arms.
The DCCC email expresses bewilderment that “five Supreme Court Justices — all of them men — decided that a corporation’s beliefs can override a woman’s access to contraceptive coverage. You would think we were in the 1950s” before going on to push the party’s legislative remedy.
“That’s why Democrats in Congress have developed legislation that would override the Supreme Court’s wrong-headed decision. We want to get 100,000 signatures to show that there’s public support for preserving women’s basic health care rights,” the email reads.
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The Senate version of the bill, according to multiple media reports, will be cosponsored by Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Mark Udall of Colorado.
Ms. Murray and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid both joined the DCCC in pushing the sexism angle.
“Your health care decisions are not your boss’s business. Since the Supreme Court decided it will not protect women’s access to health care, I will,” said Ms. Murray, who was first voted into the Senate in the 1992 “Year of the Woman” election.
Mr. Reid told reporters Tuesday that “the one thing we’re going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men.”
Regardless of what Mr. Reid can make happen on the Murray-Udall bill, its chances in the House appear slim. That chamber’s leaders applauded the Hobby Lobby decision as a victory for religious freedom.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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