Rachel Maddow has an op-ed in the Washington Post today about the war on birth control. Actually, it seems more like a war on women, but since men are affected by attempts to withhold women’s access to contraceptives, too, it’s broader than that. IMHO, it’s a war on sanity.

Conservatives are using revivals of their favorite Golden Oldies controversies (contraception, the evils of Planned Parenthood, abortion rights, “personhood”) as wedge issues because they’re running out of ideas and plans (assuming they had any to begin with) that have any credibility, like, say, pertaining to the economy or national security. President Obama has pretty much taken the wind out of their sails on those issues, at least for now.

So back(wards) they travel in time, going all anachronistic on us about on women’s reproductive rights. Rachel has an impressive knack for educating and clarifying, even enlightening, when offering her own perspective. I, for one, am glad to see her have an opportunity to broaden her reach to a print audience in addition to her TV viewers.

Here’s a sample, but hop over and read the whole thing here.

After Mississippi rejected “personhood” and its threat to contraception, after Colorado rejected it twice, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul attended (Paul by satellite) a Personhood USA candidates forum in South Carolina. All signed a pledge to pursue “personhood” at the federal level. Mitt Romney did not attend the event, but when asked on Fox News before the Mississippi vote last year whether he would have supported such a measure as Massachusetts governor, he replied, “Absolutely.”

This is critical context for understanding the national media scrum over health insurance and contraception. [...]

Time will tell on the political impact of this fight, but the relevant political context here is more than just a 2012 measure of Catholic bishops’ influence on moral issues. It’s also this year’s mainstream Republican embrace of an antiabortion movement that no longer just marches on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to criminalize abortion; it now marches on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, holding signs that say “The Pill Kills.”