While some are calling yesterday’s change of policy with regard to contraception coverage a win-win for both the Catholic church and the Obama administration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not see this as a win. Instead, they see it as one small little step, and they are pressing for much, much more.

The first amendment’s protection of religious liberty is not a license for religious organizations or individuals to disregard any law or regulation they don’t like. If the White House wants to end this fight, that’s the argument they’re going to have to make to the public. Instead, they have allowed the USCCB to set the terms of the debate, and the USCCB is quite happy to continue doing so.

This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

At the end of the health care debate, when Obama was desperate to get the final bill passed in the House, he agreed to make a deal with Bart Stupak (D-MI) on the issue of abortion, by offering an executive order that restricted the availability of insurance coverage for reproductive health. The right to abortion for many in need was traded away as a bargaining chip to get that final bill passed.

Last week, as part of the negotiations to get a budget for the rest of fiscal year 2011, President Obama again decided to use abortion rights as a bargaining chip to secure a final deal

If you think Democrats are incapable of coordination, let me forward you my email inbox for today. In it, you will find no less than 18 Democratic members of Congress sending the exact same message – in list-building petitions and recaps of multiple press conferences and advisories of additional press conferences and guidance for reporters and press aides – about attacks on women’s health by the House GOP.

In an opening bid that’s more of a mood setter than an actual policy expected to be signed into law by the President, the new Republican leadership is likely to pass a repeal of the Affordable Care Act as one of their first bills in Congress.

I’m updating nine House races to reflect the newest public polling and news reports. (Yesterday’s update can be found here.) Overall, the individual polling data today has not been good for Democrats. Each day’s new updates are highlighted in green.

I’m adding two seats, KY-06 and NE-01, to the FDL Election Hot House list (making it the Hot House 100!) because recent public polling has shown both races within five points. I’m also updating four other House seats–HI-01, MA-04, MA-10 and MI-01–to reflect new public polling information.

Today, important primaries are taking place in Michigan, Kansas and Missouri. FDL Elections will be live blogging the results as they come in this evening.

In the first trimester, we were introduced to the Stupak Amendment. Now, in the second trimester of healthcare reform, access to abortion gets an even bigger setback.

Written by Rebecca Sive for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

The Obama Administration has applied what amounts to the Stupak amendment to the interim high-risk insurance pools created in the Affordable Care Act, banning abortion services coverage in them.

I’ve been telling you about the critical concessions in the last days of the FinReg conference committee. Let’s step back a second. This bill won’t end too big to fail. It won’t protect the country to enough of a degree in the event of the next crisis. But it could do some positive things that would head in that direction. It could balance the relationship between the country and the oligopoly of giant, unaccountable banks. It could give consumers a fighting chance to protect themselves from getting screwed repeatedly. And as a financial reform bill, it’s a pretty solid anti-predatory lending bill. Heck, I’d cleave those pieces off, support it as a standalone, and hail a good progressive victory.