Their social issues rants are killing Republicans' chances

If there’s one thing that gets a girl’s attention, it’s the sight of five middle-aged men discussing how to limit women’s reproductive freedom. That was the scene recently at a GOP congressional hearing — all part of the 2012 Republican surge to discourage contraception, forbid abortion and ban gay marriage.

I did say 2012, because if this were ancient Egypt, say 1850 B.C., various herbal potions would be available to prevent conception, which was also referenced both in the Book of Genesis and the Talmud, BTW. By the ninth century, in Persia, more than 20 different methods of avoiding conception were available.

But by the Middle Ages, the world had changed. More people were needed to replace the millions killed by the plague and other catastrophic events. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull recognizing the existence of witches and approving their persecution. The reason? Witches could “slay infants yet in the mother’s womb” and hinder men from performing the sex act and women from conceiving.

Somehow, though, the idea and the practice of contraception stuck, despite the religious prohibitions, despite the persecution of practitioners of abortion and contraception, despite threats and condemnation from all sorts of religious institutions.

Today, most American women of child-bearing age use contraception, and will continue to do so despite the ranting of dangerous religious fanatics like presidential candidate Rick Santorum. According to a Huffington Post poll, more than 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control at some time in their lives.

Back to Santorum. Yes, dangerous and fanatical. His recent statements challenging the efficacy of prenatal testing are ignorant. Forget issues of abortion; prenatal testing often leads to lifesaving treatments for the mother and the baby.

The candidate is particularly scary because he is seemingly so affable. However, the world he would create for women would look like something from one of the dystopian novels like “A Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, depicting a male-dominated society in which women are valued only for their reproductive ability.