President’s Birth Control Policy Stands

Birth control amendment rejected by Senate: In the victory of the Democrats, the Senate voted on Thursday to file an amendment allows employers and insurance companies to refuse the offer of President Obama's health care on moral or religious reasons.

The Senate voted 51-48 to kill an amendment that was proposed in the Senate Republican leader Roy Blunt of Missouri, the minority as a supplement to finance the transportation bill. Blunt and his fellow Republicans to bring amendments in the fight to protect First Amendment rights (which include freedom of religion). Before the vote, Blunt argues that the language should not be considered controversial of his colleagues, the fact of the Senate, that every member of the Senate, with the exception of some of the newly elected ", voted for bills that are in this language in them."

But Democrats said the amendment limiting access to contraceptives and to violate the rights of women at a time when Congress should focus on the economy and employment. "It's not the questions that we need to discuss right now," Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said in the Senate.

After the vote Thursday, accused Blunt Democrats playing politics on this issue.

"I am very disappointed that partisanship was put into this debate on religious freedom," Blunt said in a statement. "Instead of a two-party to take action, which is part of our law for almost 40 years, this debate has been suffering from strange and separate efforts to mislead and intimidate Americans."

Blunt said he would continue to fight this problem.

Future amendments on Thursday, as soon as divided Senate hangs on the decisions of several centrist Senate. Retired Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine voted in the majority of Democrats to the table the amendment, and the three centrist Democrats - Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska - crossed party lines to vote Republican in favor of the amendment.

The President recently proposed mandate requires that all employers offer health insurance, full of contraception, including institutions such as colleges and businesses associated with the Catholic Church, for example, who can resist contraception religious reasons. The proposal generated considerable controversy, angering those who viewed the proposal as an infringement on freedom of religion, and many Catholic bishops and other religious groups.

In response, the President announced a "housing" for institutions that oppose the mandate to pass on health insurers, not employers to provide coverage of contraceptive services and women's health.