Do you want to trust your reproductive life to Trump?

Let’s pretend there was an order of nuns with a particular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. So much so that the order had, over the years, decided that any human heart was a holy symbol, and it was immoral to mess with it, even if you were a physician doing cardiac surgery.

Following their consciences, these nuns banned heart-related care from their employees’ health policies. That affected thousands of workers, many of whom did not share their religious convictions. Still, the nuns noted, their insurance coverage was generous. Except for one thing.

I suspect you know what I’m setting this up for. The Little Sisters of the Poor have won the latest Supreme Court battle over contraception.

The justices said they have the right to refuse to include birth control in their insurance policies. Actually, that was always the case. Under Obamaera regulations, the federal government took care of the issue when religious groups had ethical objections.

But the nuns didn’t want to let the government know what they weren’t doing. That counted as aiding and abetting the enemy, so they dug in their heels. No paperwork, no passing along information. And the Trump administration was happy to help them with the fight. Now, other employers with religious scruples or simply a yen to save money will leap on the bandwagon. An estimated 70,000 to 126,000 women will lose their current free contraceptive coverage.

You have to admit the anti-contraception forces were brilliant to get the Little Sisters of the Poor as their star in court. It sounds a heck of a lot more sympathetic than the other part of the same decision, Trump v. Pennsylvania.

When it came to reproduction rights, nobody really knew where Donald Trump would be going as president. He was pretty clear on abortion — the religious right’s position ruled. But once he was elected, birth control services were hit hard, too. The new administration got right into the fray in 2017, announcing it was going to let a much wider range of employers off the hook if they didn’t want to cover contraception in their health plans.

Even under much better circumstances, it’d be unnerving to think of entrusting your reproductive future to a president who appears to have about half the medical sophistication of a Barbie Doctor Doll. You remember, of course, that this is the guy who claimed that testing had determined out of all the American coronavirus cases, 99% were “totally harmless.”

He’s never thought this issue through with an eye toward anything but his base. The bottom line is basically whether women should be able to have sex without risking pregnancy. There are a lot of people who say no. There are a lot more who think that’s one of the keys to living a happy, wellplanned life.

Feel free to guess which side most of the women in Trump’s life have been on. This is a guy who likes being unpredictable himself. But he seems to prefer a certain amount of self-control when it comes to his mates.

Most Americans believe women should have the right to terminate a pregnancy, at least in the early months, but the whole idea makes a lot of people uncomfortable. However, the country is, in general, a big fan of contraception. And easy access to birth control is the key for keeping the abortion rate low. Basically, the president and the Little Sisters have struck a big blow for unwanted pregnancies.