women-protest.jpg

The GOP's obsession with reproductive rights continues

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The Republicans in the House of Representatives, that vainglorious clan of snake-handlers whose primary goal is to reshape the government they hate in their own nihilistic vision, addressed a crucial national concern last week: They want it to be legal for bosses in Washington D.C. to fire their employees if they use birth control.

There is a law known as the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act, which prohibits D.C. employers from discriminating against workers who seek contraception or family planning services. Bosses also cannot discriminate against an employee if she has terminated a pregnancy -- for now, anyway.

But in Uterine Control HQ, that right constitutes a liberal attack on anti-abortion groups in the nation's capital - where Congress hasn't exercised its constitutional power to change a D.C. law in 35 years - so the House voted to repeal the anti-discrimination measure.

It's another case of the bizarre Republican obsession with reproductive rights, which doesn't seem like a pragmatic, mainstream policy position during a presidential campaign.

But at a time when the attack on abortion rights has plateaued in many red states, and Personhood Initiatives (conferring legal rights to a fertilized egg) have been crushed by referenda in such liberal states as North Dakota and Mississippi, restrictions on contraception is the new GOP orthodoxy.

It follows the Hobby Lobby decision last summer, when the Supreme Court ruled, unpersuasively, that family-owned businesses did not have to offer employees contraceptive coverage if it conflicts with the employer's beliefs. Eventually, it will embolden more opposition to health benefits if a for-profit entity deems it offensive to faith - providing legal protection for refusing vaccinations, blood transfusions, and even equal pay.

Or, in Indiana's case, religious freedom should legalize discrimination against gays or any hyphenated American you find offensive.

So government oversight of our bedrooms will carry on, driven by some phantom assault on religious liberty. And in one political party's view of America, your boss's religious beliefs should dictate family planning - a family where kids will read Orwell and wonder what the fuss was about, because he was merely describing the only world they know.

Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.