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The birth control debate, waged in public principally by men, has generated an active discussion among women of faith.

Some see it as a personal health issue and resent the Roman Catholic Church's pushback against the government's mandate that employers provide free coverage of contraception.

Some see it as a religious issue and resent government intrusion into their faith lives.

And a number of women working for Catholic institutions wanted to remain silent for fear of their careers.

But among local women willing to speak out, opinions ranged widely.

Take Laurel Johnson (raised Methodist), Noelle Obermeyer (Catholic) and Jennifer Piatt (non-Catholic). All are Creighton University law students. All back President Barack Obama and his administration's mandate that women get free contraception.

Johnson, 24, said she's been on the birth control pill since age 13 — when doctors prescribed it to reduce her ovarian cysts. She said she knows plenty of people who use oral contraceptives for nonsexual reasons. She doesn't believe a religious institution's rights should trump individual rights.

Obermeyer, 27, said she's hoping to rally students who are in favor of this aspect of the health care law.

"As someone who grew up in the Catholic Church," she said, "I don't think I should be forced to make a medical decision based on what the church says I can and cannot do."

Piatt, 30, said she's concerned about privacy and fairness — why aren't men's health issues debated as intensely?

"Is Viagra covered? That's what I want to know," she said.

Piatt added, however, that her Creighton student health insurance paid for a tubal ligation after the birth of her third child.

"That's pretty much stopping the conception of life," she said.

Then there's Dr. Carolyn Manhart, a 37-year-old Catholic mother of four who won't prescribe birth control to her patients.

"It was a whole life-changing thing for me to realize that I couldn't in conscience prescribe it," she said.

The Obama administration on Friday offered faith-based institutions some distance from contraceptive coverage: They won't have to pay for it for their employees, but their insurers will.

That still troubles Manhart, who worries about the larger implications: What could the government force religious institutions and doctors like her to do?

Jean Butler, a mechanical engineer-turned-theologian, called Obama's compromise "very disappointing."

"We have a governmental body that is trying to control religious institutions and the free practice of religion," said Butler, a Catholic mother of five. She also trains deacons and teaches in the Omaha Archdiocese's four-year biblical school.

She said contraception "strikes at the heart of marriage" and called it a "great atrocity" that women lack education about the biology of their own bodies.

"There's nothing wrong with planning a family," she said. "The question is how you do it."

Butler, a member of St. Robert Bellarmine Church, contacted people in her pro-life circle who spent Friday evening calling The World-Herald and sending emails stating their opposition to Obama's position on contraception.

One email came from Linda Antonelli, who, objecting to the morning-after pill, wrote: "If a woman chooses to end her pregnancy by ingesting a pill, that is her choice, but to force me to pay for her decision, by covering the costs via my participation in a common insurance plan, is gut-wrenching. How can I?"

One caller was Nikki Schaefer, a 40-year-old mother of five who said she saw Obama responding, albeit not adequately, to the Catholic voice.

"I'm really glad," she said, "the Catholic Church took such a strong stance."

But other Catholic women, such as Rachel Pokora of Lincoln, would like to see the church be as vocal about other justice issues.

"Why is it when it has to do with an issue of women's health, they get up in the pulpit and basically declare war?" said Pokora, a communications professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

Pokora, 43, was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz in Lincoln because of her membership in a reform group, Call to Action. She nevertheless identifies as a Catholic and worships outside of Lincoln.

She said the birth control issue is "incredibly complicated" and isn't "black and white."

"I believe it's a matter for a person's individual, informed conscience," she said. "... You need to know what the church teaches, you need to talk to people who are respected and knowledgeables and then pray about it. If after that a person decides birth control is the right choice, then I think, good for you."

Eileen Burke-Sullivan, associate professor of theology at Creighton, said the church has a responsibility to "keep iterating its position" but she wishes women were included more in church discussions.

"I do not disagree with the university," she said. "And I don't disagree necessarily with the bishops. I disagree with the fact they have not brought women into the conversation."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com

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