As the Affordable Care Act heads to the Supreme Court for consideration, Salon’s Irin Carmon anxiously examines a new battlefront in the Obamacare wars: birth-control coverage at Catholic institutions. Bishops want church-affiliated hospitals and universities to be exempt from laws that require birth control be subsidized—and there’s evidence that Obama might cave. The scariest part is that Catholic programs often minister to victims of human trafficking, and now they may not have access to birth control. The church insists it is fighting for religious liberty, but “of course, that translates into the alleged right to deny others essential medical care.”
