GOP candidates for the U.S Senate seat in Wisconsin have jumped on board with their party’s presidential candidate hopefuls in denouncing President Barack Obama for his policy of mandating all employer health insurance must cover birth control.

After checking that we are indeed in the 21st century, I decided to lay out the facts and try to understand how any politician in America could really believe that joining Rick “Birth Control is Harmful to Women” Santorum is a good move.

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson went to his Facebook wall to share his thoughts on the new policy, saying, “Not only is the birth control requirement an affront to Catholics, but it is a breach of our religious liberties that any person of faith should oppose.”

Let’s take a second to break down Tommy’s concerns here. First of all, the birth control mandate never applied to churches themselves, but to church-affiliated businesses like a hospital. Regardless, Obama backed down and allowed any employer to be exempt from the mandate on religious grounds. In that case, the health insurance company would have to pay for the birth control. 

The insurance companies have noticeably not objected to this at all, maybe because, like the Obama administration, they are fully aware of the comparative costs of paying for cheap, effective birth control vs. paying for neonatal and pregnancy care. Not to mention the $11 billion dollars spent by taxpayers on unintended pregnancies.

A study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute also found that two-thirds of unintended pregnancies are publicly funded. The author of the 2011 study said,  “In the absence of the services provided at publicly funded family planning centers, the costs of unintended pregnancy would be 60 percent higher than they are today.”

So for Tommy to stick his neck out to defend this as an “affront to Catholics,” they must all be against birth control, right? But that’s simply not true. A recent CBS News poll found that three-fourths of U.S women, including Catholics, have taken birth control. A recent Pew Research Poll found that only eight percent of Catholics believed using contraceptives was morally wrong. 

One of Thompson’s campaign officials, Darrin Schmitz, said, “Birth control is a personal decision and a voluntary choice and not something that should be mandated by the federal government against the will of a private employer.” What if my employer has a moral issue with vaccinations? Do their personal beliefs in that situation outweigh the collective value of a society not riddled with polio or smallpox?

Looking at all the facts, it just doesn’t make sense for Thompson to come out in opposition against birth control. Obama’s compromise already has allowed religiously-affiliated institutions to avoid “religious persecution” (code in this election year for not getting exactly what you want). At the same time, this is 2012; almost all women use birth control, and to come out so vehemently against a simple issue seems counterproductive to winning an election.  

This week’s CNN poll seems to play out. It says about half of Americans oppose the new birth control policy. But most of that opposition is coming from the Republican side and is clearly more wrapped up in the attack-on-religion storyline than any actual problem with women being guaranteed birth control coverage.   

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, and another GOP hopeful, said, “Our federal government is not to impose a morally questionable mandate upon any of our citizens, and any attempt to hold individuals to a standard that goes against their religious theology shall not stand.” Come on, Fitzgerald: This policy isn’t demanding that every Catholic take birth control, only that a business owner must expand insurance to include access to this cheap and effective way to prevent escalating future costs. 

I understand ramping up rhetoric in an election. I can certainly get behind promoting religious freedom. But jumping on the back of the latest extreme in a presidential primary trying to decide who can look more conservative isn’t going to win candidates any points in Wisconsin. Stop pontificating about an imagined attack on religion and get back to the issues that matter.

John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.