I hope you Republicans like adoption A LOT

Contraception war

Polls show that one of the big issues influencing voters this year is the war in Iraq. But there's another war voters should be concerned about, too: the cultural and religious war centered on, of all things, birth control.

That may seem like a ridiculous statement. Birth control is such a common part of modern life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 98 percent of all American women who have had sexual relations have taken birth control. Yet there is pressure from social conservatives to do away with it, and that pressure is affecting public policy.

As Louisville's own Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently told The New York Times,

"I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill…. The pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex, and, within marriage, to a separation of the sex act and procreation."

Sometimes the arguments for restricting access to birth control are framed as arguments against abortion. Those opposed to contraception say a pregnancy begins at the moment of fertilization, and, therefore, anything that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is an abortifacient, including birth control pills and IUDs.

Of course, that's not what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says. Its 49,000 members define pregnancy as beginning at the moment of implantation, the traditional medical view.

After all, even under ideal conditions, only half of all fertilized eggs attach themselves to the uterine wall. The ones that don't aren't considered dead souls. Also, a woman's body doesn't begin to nurture an egg until it is implanted in the womb.

There are many fronts in the birth-control war, including abstinence-only education and moves to let pharmacists refuse to dispense contraceptives. But the most obvious is over emergency contraception, or the Plan B "morning after pill." It's basically just a high-dose birth control pill.

Ignoring scientists and bowing to the anti-contraception forces, the Food and Drug Administration has refused to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B.

In response, the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now is encouraging women to get prescriptions before they need them. Having Plan B on hand will "eliminate the logistical and political barriers that currently exist and make emergency conception largely inaccessible to women," the group says.

It is hard to imagine opposition to a pill that can prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

But that's the weird war this country is in. Indeed, it's so weird that contraception is being depicted as damaging to marriages, instead of as a way for couples to responsibly shape their lives.

"By using contraception," says the director of the National Pro-Life Action Center, "(couples) are not allowing the fullness of their expression of love. To frustrate the procreative potential ends up harming the relationship." Dr. Mohler speaks similarly.

Well, America is a free country, and birth control is a choice: No one has to use it.

But married couples themselves should remain free to determine whether it helps or hurts "their expression of love."

Voters need to pay attention. This war isn't on the fringes anymore. It's being played out in capitals from Frankfort to Washington, D.C., as policies involving access to birth control change.

In the fall, voters should consider how they feel about this cultural war at home, as well as the distant one in Iraq.