The Republican War on Women suffered a crushing defeat when Democrats defeated the Blunt Amendment to deprive women of contraception. In spite of John Boehner’s promises to continue the battle in the House, Republicans are showing they lack the spine to own their stated position on a federal level. Instead they are using a back door approach at the state level with legislation so draconian that even the Blunt amendment pales by comparison.

Over the last few weeks, Republicans have quietly backed away from the controversial Blunt Amendment and other legislative efforts to allow employers to deny contraception coverage to women. “I think Republicans know that it hasn’t served them well,” Sen. Chuck Schumer told TPM at the time. Apparently, state-level Republicans didn’t get the memo. Several state legislatures were inspired rather than dissuaded by the contraception debate in Washington, and are considering their own versions of the Blunt Amendment — keeping alive an issue national Republicans thought they were putting to bed. Arizona, New Hampshire, Idaho and Georgia have taken up bills to expand exemptions for contraception coverage. Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Idaho and Wyoming lawmakers are moving symbolic resolutions condemning the administration’s contraception coverage rule. Lawmakers working on the state bills, like their counterparts in Congress, insist that the measures are about protecting religious liberty, not women’s access to health care. But a new poll from Bloomberg shows that a majority of voters don’t see it that way. The poll, released Wednesday, found 62 percent of Americans believe the debate over religious institutions’ obligations to provide birth control coverage is a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom. Worse, 77 percent do not think birth control to be part of the political debate in the first place. But thanks to these states, and Arizona in particular, the contraception debate is still raging in the national press, even now that national Republicans have quietly abandoned their effort… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

I’m not at all surprised that the worst of the worst is coming from the Totalitarian Corporate Plutocracy of Brewerstan, formerly Arizona. That’s where Death Angel, Jan Brewer, is infamous for killing her own citizens by cutting the Medicaid funding for patients, whose life-saving transplants had already been scheduled. She did this to give bigger tax breaks to millionaires. The bill being fast-tracked through the Brewerstan legislature will require women to tell their employers why they need contraception, so the employers can decide whether or not they consider the reason morally objectionable.

Rachel Maddow reviews in detail what Republicans are doing against women in the states. Jan Schakowsky joins her.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy