Forget about Jesus - the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has a friend in Fox News and in this world of the twenty-four hour news cycle, that gets you far more mileage than Jesus! From the moment that these men in black began to howl about how the HHS birth control mandate infringes on their religious liberty (Special privilege to discriminate? Not on Fox!), Fox news validated their outrage. And it's not just me. Washington Post writer Melinda Hennenberger wrote that "Fox News bishops" are alienating some Catholics. The bishops' outrage continues, as shown in their immediate rebuke of Vice-President Joe Biden's debate comments about the birth control mandate.Thus, it wasn't surprising to see Catholic anti-choice zealot Laura Ingraham, in taking her marching orders from her bishops (and Roger Ailes), promote the bishop's talking points - including the Fox News/Catholic bishops zombie lie that the HHS mandate covers abortion drugs.
On Friday's "Factor," Ingraham, wearing her great, big, gold cross bling (so you know she's a great, big Catholic), opened with the question of whether Martha Raddatz' question regarding abortion reignited the "so called war on women." Her guests were liberal radio host Leslie Marshall and former GOP member of congress Marilyn Musgrave, an radical anti-choice zealot who is working with the Susan B Anthony List, a group that seeks to defeat pro-choice politicians.
Marshall felt that Raddatz's question was a good one and that it didn't "resurrect the war on women" because, noted Marshall, "the war is still going on." (Ain't that the truth!). She said that both testimonies were "heartfelt and honest" Throughout the discussion she argued in favor of choice and agreed with Biden that Catholic politicians should not be pushing Catholic dogma on those with other beliefs.
Predictably, Musgrave accused the Obama administration of being "extreme" on abortion. (Yeah, allowing women the freedom to control their bodies is soooo extreme!) She whined about the HHS mandate which "forces religious institutions and employers to subsidize abortion inducing drugs." (LIE - abortion inducing drugs are not part of the mandate, only the Catholic church thinks that emergency contraception is "abortion inducing." The medical community disagrees.) She claimed that "Obamacare is the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v Wade" and that Obama is the "most pro-abortion president" evah because of his opposition to abortion restrictions. She repeated, at least three times, the "extreme" nature of the administration's abortion policies and that the country is becoming more pro-life (two mentions).
Ingraham rolled out the bishop's talking points. She cited her Catholicism and how she "recoiled" at Biden's comment that while he is personally opposed to abortion, "he's not going to doing anything to forward the judgment of his own church which is what the church says we should do." ("Forwarding" - as in pushing the Vatican's agenda? Didn't JFK say that wasn't cool?) She mentioned that her bishop pals have strongly "rebuked" Biden because they feel that there's no accommodation for Catholic institutions.
She claimed that "we subsidize, through premium support policies that allow for and give abortifacient drugs" blah, blah, "religious liberty" blah, blah. (Like Musgrave, she lied because the mandate doesn't cover abortion drugs). She emphasized that the top Catholic Church officials say that Biden is wrong and that the bishops are suing the administration.
When Marshall disagreed with Musgrave's comment about the country becoming more pro-life, Ingraham said that the polls indicate otherwise. (On the "pro-life" question, people are split but a majority still wants it to remain legal). Laura closed with a wish that her Catholic anti-choice homie had "brought up the born alive infant protection act" - a tired anti-choice canard, promoted by anti-choice extremists such as batshit crazy anti-choice radical Jill Stanek, that Obama voted against an Illinois version of the bill because he supports "infanticide" when the truth is that he felt it would undermine the right to an abortion.
If Bill O'Reilly is a commanding general in the "war on women," Ingraham is definitely a high ranking officer!
But one mandate making it easier to get contraception is the ultimate affront to religion.
Yeah, gotcha.
If life begins at conception as claimed by the Church, the biggest abortionist would be God, considering that well over half the eggs that are fertilised do not go on to produce a viable child. St. Thomas Aquinis felt that one could speak of “life” only after the third month or so. Why does the Church not respect his opinion in this as they do for so many other things?
Anyway, most Catholic women nowadays have far fewer children than their grandmothers (mine had eleven, not counting the spontaneous abortions) and I do not think they’re having less sex. More the opposite.