Obama got it right on this one

Today President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (shown below on our back porch campaigning for Obama in 2008) rejected efforts by anti-women's health groups and their allies in Congress to cut off access to birth control for millions of women simply because they work at religiously affiliated hospitals or attend religiously affiliated universities.

The Obama administration announced that these women and their families will have access to the new benefit that requires health insurance plans to cover birth control with no co-pays.

Good time to thank him for doing something right. NC's Planned Parenthoods and many other groups worked hard to get him to do the right thing.

As Advocates for Youth, a great DC group that lobbies for good policy for young people, put it,

Millions of young women at Catholic and religious affiliated colleges will no longer face barriers to accessing birth control through their student health plans. This decision is also a huge step forward for young people who receive insurance coverage through their parents' health care plans at religious affiliated hospitals and other businesses. The decision takes HHS one step closer to implementing the Institute of Medicine's nonpartisan recommendations that women's preventive services, including all FDA-approved methods of birth control, be covered in full.

So, more of the battle still to be fought -- let's let Obama know we're watching!