Underpinning the bishops’ complaint about the Admistration’s rule to require contraception coverage in health insurance is the idea that nobody in America should have to assent to government policies that violate their personal beliefs. This comes as news to committed pacifists.

Mitt Romney, struggling to regain the lead from Rick Santorum in national polls and facing a serious deficit in the key primary state of Michigan, has doubled down on his position against the auto industry rescue, arguing that the industry should have gone through a “managed bankruptcy,” mainly to squeeze out the United Auto Workers.

I see that the Conference of Catholic Bishops has figured out how the Obama Administration has either cleverly or by fumbling finessed the contraception insurance coverage issue while exposing the Bishops to the charge their objections are more using government to restrict women’s rights than violating the moral conscience of a bunch of old men out of touch with their congregations.

Catholic bishops had a mixed reaction to President Obama’s new plan for birth control access, which preserves universal, cost-free access and uses a Hawaii-type compromise to leave the religiously affiliated institutions out of the exchange of services between an insurance company and the employee.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has reportedly rejected a proposed compromise with the Obama Administration on birth control access rules for religiously affiliated institutions. Under the “Hawaii compromise” any exempt religious organization would have to tell enrollees how they could directly access contraceptive services from their insurance company. But advocates of ensured access don’t want to force employees to beg their employers for a right they should have.

An energized and battle-tested Planned Parenthood will issue a call to action to their members today to defend the President’s birth control policy and urge the White House not to give in to the fierce lobbying from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops by altering the policy in any way detrimental to universal access. The organization will send a message from Cecile Richards to all its members on the issue today, FDL News has leaned.

Administration officials are preparing the ground for some kind of rollback on universal access for birth control, after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops turned the issue into a major controversy. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney hinted at changes to the regulations and other Admin sources dropped hints.

I didn’t think we had reached the point in America where providing free contraception would be seen as a risky political maneuver, but here we are. Last month, the Administration agreed to universal access to birth control as part of the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies would need to provide coverage for contraception in both employer plans and on the insurance exchanges without a co-pay.

When the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity dropped its support for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, they did enormous damage to themselves just to appease conservatives. They’ve just set in motion a backlash that will hurt a lot.

Our paranoid culture of rooting out fraud and our fear-mongering media that makes every anecdote a proof the system is corrupt, make it harder for people who need help to get it.