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If those women would just keep their legs closed, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

New Hampshire state rep Jeanine Notter, a Tea-Party legislator, claimed that birth control causes prostate cancer, and in Utah, Republican rep Bill Wright sponsored legislation “that would prohibit schools from teaching teens about contraception.” The conservative pseudo-intellectual James Poulos wrote a confusing column for the Daily Caller posing the question, “What Are Women For?” He didn't quite have the nerve to actually answer it, but his implied argument wasn't hard to discern: breeding.

Making the task of insisting that this is a fight over “religious liberty” even harder is the Blunt amendment, which, for reasons known only to Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, does not provide an exemption limited to religious institutions, but rather extends to any employer or insurer the right not to offer coverage that conflicts with their “moral convictions." (Blunt and his supporters claim that critics are wrong about this, but as Adam Serwer notes, “that's exactly what the bill says it would do. It states that 'a health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide [Essential Health Benefits or Preventive Services]' if it fails to cover the service or benefit because 'providing coverage...of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan.'" In any case, there wouldn't be room for debate if his bill had been written more narrowly.)

Our impressions are also shaped by the larger political context of the moment. The claim that this battle has nothing to do with shaming emancipated women simply holds no water at a time when Virginia is poised to become the third state to mandate that women seeking an abortion undergo a painful and invasive procedure compelling them to “see” the fetus they have already chosen to abort. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick noted that “under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law,” but wingnuts like Dana Loesch responded that these women "had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy."

What is it we are supposed to be talking about? Right, religious liberty!

But what explains this unusual lack of message discipline within the conservative movement? It is, ultimately, the authoritarian personality type's innate, deeply rooted fear of social change. As Sara Robinson wrote last week, “mass-produced, affordable, reliable contraception has shredded the ages-old social contract between men and women, and is forcing us all (willing or not) into wholesale renegotiations on a raft of new ones.” Robinson continued:

And, frankly, while some men have embraced this new order— perhaps seeing in it the potential to open up some interesting new choices for them, too — [many are increasingly confused, enraged, and terrified by it.] They never wanted to be at this table in the first place, and they’re furious to even find themselves being forced to have this conversation at all.

It is this intense fury that is causing many on the Right to engage in a compulsive round of "slut-shaming" -- it's throwing them off message and making it clear to the public at large that this fight is first and foremost about women's role in society, and not “conscience” or “liberty” or any of the other talking points that might have won the American people over to their side in the debate.

And that clarity will play out in this election cycle. As Greg Sargent notes, over the past three months pollsters have seen a dramatic, 18-point swing from Romney to Obama among unmarried women, and the president now leads the supposedly “moderate” contender by a stunning 65-30 margin among that group. When it comes to this bizarre fight over contraception, social conservatives are proving to be their party's own worst enemies.  

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