Did the “War on Women” Work? Women, Men, and the Birth Control Mandate in the 2012 Presidential Election

• Date: 01 January 2015
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14535240
• Subject Matter: Articles

American Politics Research

2015, Vol. 43(1) 3 –26

© The Author(s) 2014

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14535240

apr.sagepub.com

Article

Did the “War on

Women” Work?

Women, Men, and the

Birth Control Mandate

in the 2012 Presidential

Election

Melissa Deckman1 and John McTague2

Abstract

Using a nationally representative data set (N = 3,000), the Public Religion

Research Institute’s American Values Survey, we conduct multivariate

regression analysis to determine the empirical impact of attitudes regarding

the birth control mandate and abortion on presidential vote choice. We

also conduct factor analysis to determine whether voters conceptualized

the birth control mandate and abortion similarly. We find that support for

the Obama administration’s birth control mandate was significantly related

to voting for Obama for both women and men voters, although the impact

was stronger for women. However, the impact of the “War on Women”

rhetoric on voters’ choices was limited to the issue of insurance coverage

for birth control rather than extending to the issue of abortion. Unlike

attitudes about abortion, we find that voters conceptualized the birth control

mandate less as a “culture war” issue and more as a “role of government”

issue. Given this conceptualization of the mandate by voters, our findings

reaffirm previous research that suggests that the gender gap in voting is

largely driven by attitudinal differences regarding the role of government in

providing social welfare benefits and equal opportunity for women.

1Washington College, Chestertown, MD, USA

2Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Melissa Deckman, Washington College, 300 Washington Ave., Chestertown, MD 21620, USA.

Email: Mdeckman2@washcoll.edu

535240APRXXX10.1177/1532673X14535240American Politics ResearchDeckman and McTague

research-article2014

4 American Politics Research 43(1)

Keywords

War on Women, gender gap, abortion, birth control mandate

Women’s issues played a prominent role in the 2012 elections due in no small

part to the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s decision to

make insurance coverage of birth control a requirement for all workplaces,

even religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges, as part of its health care

reform effort. This birth control mandate was met with fierce opposition from

the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other conservative religious

organizations. Such organizations viewed the mandate as a violation of reli-

gious freedom—a position that was also taken vocally by the Romney cam-

paign. Proponents of the measure, however, sought to paint Romney’s

opposition to the mandate as hostility toward women’s health care. Planned

Parenthood Action Fund created a giant pack of birth control pills, which

they dubbed “Pillamina,” to follow the Romney campaign in the summer of

2012 as a way to portray access to contraception as an economic issue for

women. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards claimed “[t]hat’s

something that President Obama clearly understands, and that Mitt Romney

simply doesn’t” (Viebeck, 2012). The birth control mandate controversy fol-

lowed a heated session of Congress in which congressional Republicans

attempted to stop federal funding for Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s

largest providers of basic health care, including abortion and contraceptive

services, for poor women. Mitt Romney vowed to defund Planned Parenthood

if he was elected President. Romney’s positions on both issues were the cen-

terpiece of several advertisements run by the Obama campaign in the summer

of 2012, including one ad featuring two women, Dawn and Alex, who

described Romney as being “extreme” and “really out of touch on women’s

health issues.” Said Alex in the ad, “[T]his is not the 1950s. Contraception is

so important. It’s about a woman being able to make decisions” (Politifact,

2012).

Another reproductive health issue, abortion, was also front and center in

the 2012 elections as the rhetoric of several anti-abortion Republican candi-

dates made national headlines. U.S. Representative Todd Akin, running for

the Missouri Senate seat, claimed in a televised interview that a rape excep-

tion for abortion was unnecessary because victims of “legitimate rape” rarely

get pregnant. In a debate against his Democratic opponent Joe Donnelly,

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock defended his stance

that abortion should be outlawed in cases of rape because God intends preg-

nancies to happen “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape”

(Krieg & Good, 2012). Democrats quickly jumped on these statements as