GOP Candidates Go After Obama on Birth Control

(NewsCore) - Republican presidential candidates continued to slam President Barack Obama for a regulation that would have required religious organizations to offer free birth control to female employees -- even after the president amended the rule on Friday.

After an outcry by religious groups, Obama revised the rule to say insurance companies, rather than religious organizations, will be obligated to offer free contraception to the institutions' employees.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Portland, Maine, Friday evening, Romney called Obama's revision "disingenuous and deceptive," arguing that the cost of birth control will still be passed on to the religious groups.

Earlier, while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum did not address the rule change, but slammed the president for "telling the Catholic Church that they are forced to pay for things that are against their basic tenets and teachings, against their First Amendment right."

Later, speaking to reporters, Santorum expanded on those remarks, arguing that birth control is affordable and "shouldn't even be in an insurance plan to begin with."

"You don't need insurance for these types of relatively small expenditures," he said.

Also speaking at CPAC, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich alluded to the contraception flap and said Obama will "wage war on the Catholic Church" during a second term.

"I frankly don't care what deal he tries to cut, this is a man who is deeply committed -- if he wins re-election, he will wage war on the Catholic Church the morning after he is re-elected. We cannot trust him," Gingrich said. "We know who he really is and we should make sure the country knows who he really is."