Obama recasts birth control debate on own terms

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By JULIE PACE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is casting the contraception controversy as an issue of women's rights, not religious freedom, seizing on what backers see as a political gift from Rush Limbaugh to firm up support from women and young voters, groups essential to his re-election hopes.

He dove deep into the culture wars of American politics by rushing to defend a female law student verbally attacked by the conservative commentator, making a telephone call of support to Georgetown University's Sandra Fluke. It was nothing short of an election-year appeal to a crucial voting bloc.

It also had the political benefit of forcing Republicans to choose between siding with the president and taking what critics view as an extreme position to counter him. Limbaugh, who has an enormous following on the political right, called Fluke a "slut" because the 30-year-old student has been a vocal supporter of access to contraception.

The president's involvement in the debate over contraception, and whether insurers should be required to cover it, helped reignite a political battle from the 1960s and 1970s, and the birth of the religious right. By the 1980s, Christian conservatives were being elected to school boards and city councils. That success formed a foundation for what by the 1990s and 2000s were being called America's "values voters."

Now, as then, the country is trying to determine the government's role in morality.

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