Planned Parenthood: Contraception suit 'unbelievable'

Legal challenges to the Obama administration's contraception mandate are "unbelievable," Planned Parenthood said Monday.

Several Catholic institutions, including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of Washington, filed lawsuits Monday arguing that the contraception policy is a violation of the First Amendment.

"It is unbelievable that in the year 2012 we have to fight for access to birth control," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Yet this lawsuit would make it harder for millions of women to get birth control."

The lawsuits and the response from Planned Parenthood mirror the political debate over the birth-control mandate. Critics, most notably the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, see the policy as a question of religious freedom. But the mandate's supporters say it's about women's health, not religion.

“This isn’t a religious or political issue — it’s a medical issue, and that’s where we should keep it,” Richards said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting women’s access to preventive health services, including birth control, and we will work to ensure that no woman has to worry about how she will afford her next birth control prescription.”

The administration's policy requires most businesses to cover contraception in their employees' health plans. Churches and houses of worship are exempt. While religious-affiliated employers such as Catholic universities don't have to provide the coverage directly, their employees can get birth control through the insurance company, still without paying a co-pay or deductible.

Catholic groups challenging the mandate say passing the burden to insurers isn't sufficient. They want an exemption for all business owners who are Catholic.

The Health and Human Services Department based the mandate on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, an independent panel of healthcare experts. President Obama's healthcare law requires certain preventive services to be covered without a co-pay, and the IOM said contraception should be included among those preventive services.

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