WASHINGTON – The discussion started Monday on “Morning Joe,” with Mika Brzezinski reading part of an over the top declarative Peggy Noonan op-ed and getting very exercised about it before she had the facts.

“The Peggy Noonan piece left some things out. … But I have to say, the article appears to be very misleading.” – Mika Brzezinski, “Morning Joe” (7 Feburary)

Something very obvious and important is getting lost in the current contraceptive controversy.

If religious conservatives like Noonan really wanted to stop abortions and unplanned pregnancies they’d hail the opportunity for more women to have access to birth control without charge. That they aren’t says all you need to know.

David Axelrod on “Morning Joe” teased a compromise today, which is not a surprise to anyone, I’m sure. But does the Obama team actually believe religious conservatives are going to compromise? I mean, seriously, because that theory has worked so well with congressional Republicans? It’s the epitome of Obama logic and a catastrophic suggestion, especially when a majority of Catholics (and other religious Americans, including myself) agree with the Administration. Catholics for Choice has released a statement of support from faith leaders backing Pres. Obama’s decision.

This whole argument has certainly revealed the priorities of religious conservatives, putting them at odds with women. Birth control is an economic issue for modern women, regardless of faith, as is planning pregnancy itself, a subject of my book in the chapter titled “Is Freedom Just for Men?” However, the religious institution and whipping up a crisis around religious freedom that doesn’t exist is paramount in the minds of Republicans, because they want it for a political issue, which was proven quickly because that’s the first place they went. Democrats are more concerned with getting important reproductive health care to low and middle income women, while bending over backward to keep from setting off a religious war with the right who won’t be deterred.

Rarely has an issue set up the political sides so starkly.

Again, if stopping unplanned pregnancies was the goal it’s clear who’d come out on top morally and it’s not religious conservatives or Republicans.

From a new poll by PublicReligion.org:

Majority Support Requirement that Employer Health Care Plans Include Contraception Coverage

• A majority (55%) of Americans agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” Four-in-ten (40%) disagree with this requirement.
• There are major religious, generational and political divisions:

• Roughly 6-in-10 Catholics (58%) believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception.
• Among Catholic voters, support for this requirement is slightly lower at 52%.
• Only half (50%) of white Catholics support this requirement, compared to 47% who oppose it.
• Among other religious Americans, 61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception, compared to only half (50%) of white mainline Protestants and less than 4-in-10 (38%) white evangelical Protestants.

As an aside, Massachusetts Mitt Romney issued a similar ruling as Pres. Obama did on contraceptives, but presidential candidate Mitt Romney is railing against it today. Chalk it up as just another point of hypocrisy from Mr. Romney.

To Ms. Brzezinski’s credit, she changed her tune yesterday after getting the facts from the White House, which Joe Scarborough labeled as talking to a “mouthpiece.” It’s unfortunate Brzezinski wasn’t armed with the facts before she read Noonan’s piece on the air, because this is important policy for women that needs everyone’s attention, no matter your politics or religion. But this type of thing happens far too often on cable, taking a traditional journalist’s op-ed as gospel when peers revere the writer.

There is no injury to freedom of religion by what the Obama administration has done. It’s patently false to say otherwise, which is what Noonan’s column implied, Joe Scarborough has insinuated, and Mark Halperin posits will alter the 2012 election, with Scarborough agreeing, of which there is absolutely no proof. What applies is if any institution provides health care to its employees they must provide women with the same contraceptive coverage as any other woman in the country. No discrimination because she’s working for a Catholic school or hospital. That in no way precludes what Catholics can choose for themselves.

The hypocrisy of religious conservatives is fully unmasked through this discussion. As a person of faith and deep spirituality myself, the purpose religious conservatives to impede a woman’s autonomy is obviously a continual effort to control. These individuals also evidently think immaculate intervention will stop pregnancy. But instead, what the leaders of the Catholic Church and their allies are focused on is keeping control over women’s reproductive and economic reality.

If the Catholic Church and other religious political operatives really cared about stopping abortion they’d understand that’s what’s at stake here. Preventing unplanned pregnancy and putting the control of women’s lives in their own hands, which cannot happen without access to reproductive health care, starting with birth control, is what’s at issue.

As many here know, I’m not a fan of the Administration and have said so on multiple platforms, including here at TMV, as well as on Juan Cole’s blog, and U.S. News & World Report.

However, Pres. Obama’s policy on contraceptive coverage is the correct one and should be supported, whether you’re in a Catholic hospital or at Fordham.

Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham University law student, knew that the school’s health plan had to pay for birth control pills, in keeping with New York state law. What she did not find out until she was in an examining room, “in the paper dress,” was that the student health service — in keeping with Roman Catholic tenets — would simply refuse to prescribe them.

Bridgette Dunlap organized an off-campus clinic staffed by volunteer doctors to provide prescriptions for birth control because Fordham University’s student health service does not do so.

As a result, students have had to go to Planned Parenthood or private doctors to get prescriptions . Some, unable to afford the doctor visits, gave up birth control pills entirely.

Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.