The XX Factor

As Economic Doom Nears, House Republicans Still Focused on Contraception. Get Over It, Guys!

John Boehner (R-Ohio) speaks to the media while flanked by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) (right) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) following a House Republican caucus meeting that went nowhere.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Senate leaders are scrambling today to come up with a plan for ending the government shutdown and preventing federal debt default, after the House utterly failed to come up with a suitable plan on Tuesday. Part of the problem appears to be that some House Republicans cannot get past their anger and fear that American women keep making their own reproductive health decisions for themselves. According to the Washington Post:

Boehner’s initial proposal was to include two provisions that would have given conservatives some small measure of satisfaction in exchange for ending the government shutdown and raising the debt limit. One would have delayed a tax on medical devices that helps finance the new health-care law. The other would have ended employer-provided health subsidies given to lawmakers and members of the executive branch, who are required to join the new health-care exchanges.

But conservatives quickly complained that it wasn’t enough. The bill would not cut spending, they said, or reform entitlement programs, or erase a clause in the health law that requires employers to provide coverage for contraception. And it clearly would not achieve their ultimate goal of ending the program they call Obamacare.

Emphasis mine, because it’s important to remember that as the world faces economic catastrophe, some Republicans can’t be bothered to care. They’re too upset that, among other slights, women can use their own insurance plans to cover their own medications without involving their bosses. 

Tim Murphy of Mother Jones had more details on the vagina-obsessed House Republicans who can’t pull their nose out of your crotch long enough to save the world economy:

“There are a lot of people, and I’m one of those, who are really pushing for a conscience clause to be included,” said Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), a former consultant and End-Times novelist who was elected last fall. “They want to have some principle that they could go home and say, ‘we fought for this, and we got this.’”

Yes, as long as you score the point, everything else should just fix itself.

Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the government shutdown.