Bobby Jindal: GOP Should Back Over-the-Counter Birth Control
Jindal is among the new class of “realpolitik republicans” - he sees the handwriting on the wall and so tries to triangulate on this issue. If you look close you see that it’s really a no lose for the GOP.
It still allows him to give full bore support to social conservative creationism legislation and anti-abortion legislation while taking the Religious Freedom vs Women’s Rights question that crushed Romney’s chances completely off the table. This is because if birth control does go OTC then insurance won’t cover it and Jindal recognizes that the war on women is losing the GOP votes.
A likely GOP presidential hopeful in 2016, Bobby Jindal has decided to lay some groundwork with a “buck-the-party” marker. The Louisiana governor took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to advocate for over-the-counter birth control.
Though he takes pains to call himself an “unapologetic pro-life Republican,” Jindal says directly that he believes anyone over 18 should be able to buy contraceptives without a prescription.
His advocacy comes after the leading group of OB/GYNs called for over-the-counter birth-control sales last month.
Still, Jindal’s call for “the end of birth-control politics” goes only so far. He makes sure to criticize President Obama’s health care law, writing that “anyone who has a religious objection to contraception should not be forced by government health-care edicts to purchase it for others”—a nod to social conservatives in the Republican base.