The contraception problem reveals the complexity of the president's election-year calculus. | REUTERS W.H. tries to quell birth control storm

President Barack Obama is groping for a solution to an increasingly ugly election-year controversy over birth control coverage. And Republicans are doing everything in their power to make it as difficult as possible for the White House.

Escalating the fight, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made a rare floor speech Wednesday afternoon vowing to overturn a new administration rule that requires faith-based employers to provide workers free contraceptive coverage.


“If the president does not reverse the [administration’s] attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend, must,” Boehner said.

Polls show the birth control rule is popular, even among Catholics — but the backlash within Washington has been fierce, and the actions of the president’s top advisers Tuesday showed just how worried they are about it.

A remark from Obama’s senior campaign strategist David Axelrod that the White House might be open to a compromise marked an unexpected turn in the fight and set off a Washington guessing game about the administration’s intentions.

White House officials insisted their position hasn’t changed, but Axelrod’s comments quickly became a Rorschach test for advocates on both sides of a dispute stoked by Republican presidential candidates, liberal and conservative Catholics, cable TV pundits and religious-liberty advocates.

The problem illustrates the complexities of Obama’s election-year calculus: Walk back the decision, and enrage women voters, a group he must woo to win reelection. Stick to it, and risk inflaming Catholics, a critical swing bloc that he can’t afford to lose too badly.

White House officials promise to work with religious groups on a solution, perhaps by adjusting the way coverage is provided, but there’s no endgame in sight. And Republicans, seizing on an issue they hope will galvanize blue-collar voters and religious conservatives, have been more than happy to focus on the battle engulfing Obama rather than the spectacle of their own presidential candidates savaging one another.

Obama sparked a firestorm last month when he decided to exempt churches and other houses of worship, but not religious-affiliated institutions, from the new requirement in the health care law that all employers cover contraception as part of their insurance benefits.

Two polls released Tuesday show a majority of Catholics agree with the president’s decision. But he continues to face sharp criticism from Catholic groups, which say the rule forces institutions to cover services that run counter to church teaching, and Republicans, who are trying to cast him as anti-religion. Vice President Joe Biden and former White House chief of staff Bill Daley told the president that the decision would be cast as a government intrusion on religious freedom, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Boehner picked up on that line of attack in his speech.

“This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country cannot stand, and will not stand,” Boehner said.

The question now is whether the administration will use a one-year grace period for complying with the mandate to make further accommodations for these church-affiliated employers.

Axelrod signaled — in sharper terms than senior administration officials had previously — that a compromise may be in the offing.

“I heard earlier Joe [Scarborough] say, ‘Well, there may be compromises that can be reached,’” Axelrod said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.”

White House aides assured reproductive-rights advocates during a meeting Tuesday morning that Axelrod’s comments did not mark a shift in administration policy, according to participants in the meeting.

An administration official said in an interview that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t intend to expand the exemption and that the president’s overarching goal of broadening access to birth control won’t change.

But the official also pointed out that there are different ways to meet the goal of expanded contraceptive coverage, and adjusting the mechanism for providing that coverage could address the objections of faith-based employers — offering a bit of wiggle room that could form the basis of a compromise.

Hawaii, for instance, allows religious employers to decline contraceptive coverage, but they must notify their employees and lay out alternative ways for them to access the services.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, a liberal Catholic who has criticized the rule, reported last month that administration had decided it lacked the authority to implement a Hawaii-style solution. But it remains one example of an alternative approach.

“We want to work with all these organizations to implement this policy in a way that is as sensitive to their concerns as possible,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday. “But let’s be clear. We are committed — the president is committed — to ensuring that women have access to contraception without paying any extra costs no matter where they work.”

On Tuesday, Carney said that Sebelius made clear from the outset that she would work with religious groups to allay their concerns.

“I think that that point was overlooked in the initial coverage of the decision,” Carney said.

“The administration is going to work with religious-affiliated institutions during the one-year exemption period to implement the policy in a way that is as sensitive to their concerns as possible — while ensuring women still get the coverage they need,” the administration official said.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that Sebelius made clear from the outset that she would work with religious groups to allay their concerns.

“I think that that point was overlooked in the initial coverage of the decision,” Carney told reporters.

But interest groups on both sides of the issue, as well as members of Congress, didn’t interpret that single sentence in Sebelius’s initial statement — “We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns” — as a commitment to make changes, which is why Axelrod’s comments caught them off guard.

“I can’t see in any way whatsoever this administration could roll back that decision because it would be a huge betrayal of women voters,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice.

Asked whether the Hawaii approach would pass muster, O’Brien said: “It would not be in any way acceptable,” adding that in places where it’s been adopted, it has “created major problems.”

“This is not a time for the administration to fudge an issue,” he said.

Some Hill Democrats, while broadly supportive of the White House policy, are none too impressed by the way Obama and Axelrod have been messaging the controversy — or by how long it’s taken them to realize the threat posed to other Democrats by a war with the Catholic Church.

Axelrod was “trying to say that we have already compromised, that we are always open to talk about stuff,” said a top aide to a Democratic senator who supports the policy. “But he made it sound like they were gonna buckle, and it’s got everyone stirred up. This was a time for full-throated defense of both the policy and the administration’s great sensitivity for religious freedom. And they’re not really delivering. Plus they should force people to talk about what this is really about — the health of women.”

The proposed version of the rule issued in August exempted houses of worship from the requirement that health plans fully cover all FDA-approved contraception, but not other faith-based organizations. This provoked an outcry led by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who were concerned that Catholic hospitals and universities would be forced to compromise on their religious beliefs.

The uproar intensified when HHS announced last month that it would not broaden the exemption in the final rule. It did add a one-year grace period to allow other religious organizations to come into compliance, but this won few points from the policy’s critics.

The president sought to mitigate the damage this decision would inflict on his relationship with Catholic leaders, personally calling New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, head of the Catholic Bishops, and Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association.

Keehan was a key supporter of Obama’s health care law, backing the bill while the bishops withheld support out of concern that it would lead to federal funding of abortions. Keehan said she is cautiously encouraged by Axelrod’s remarks.

“I don’t want to over-read what he meant by what he said,” Keehan said. But she hopes it signals renewed flexibility on the administration’s part. “I think this is something we could resolve fairly quickly with people of goodwill.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), an anti-abortion Catholic who recently wrote to the administration calling for officials to broaden the religious exemption, said he was “glad to hear” about Axelrod’s comments.

“I think on this we can get a compromise,” he said.

But Mark Rienzi, a Catholic University law professor and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents two religious universities challenging the law, is skeptical that the administration would ever go far enough.

“It’s great to hear that the administration recognizes the scope of its problem … but the only compromise that’s going to work is a complete exemption for anyone who has a religious objection to contraception,” he said.

Then there were those who heard no change at all in Axelrod’s remarks — only affirmation of a policy they like.

“The White House has been very strong and steadfast on this issue,” said Planned Parenthood spokesman Tait Sye.

Glenn Thrush contributed to this report.