This one’s making the rounds this morning, as reported by U.S. News and World Report:

As the White House readies its plan for finding “common ground” on reproductive health issues and reducing the need for abortion, a major debate has emerged over how to package the plan’s two major components: preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion.

Many abortion rights advocates and some Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars want the White House to package the two parts of the plan together, as a single piece of legislation. The plan would seek to reduce unwanted pregnancies by funding comprehensive sex education and contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by bolstering federal support for pregnant women.

Supporters of the approach say it would force senators and members of Congress on both sides of the abortion battle to compromise their traditional positions, creating true common ground that mirrors what President Obama has called for.

But more conservative religious groups working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships say they would be forced to oppose such a plan—even though they support the abortion reduction part—because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education. This camp, which includes such formidable organizations as the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, is pressuring the White House to decouple the two parts of the plan into separate bills.

Emphasis added.

And it is indeed proof that many of the most stalwart opponents of abortions are also the most stalwart opponents of contraception - the bottom line being, they are stalwart opponents of sexual freedom, period (or “unapproved *%$$#@*, as Atrios says).

I think there is middle ground amongst reasonable people on this debate, but if these conservative groups really try to scuttle legislation that might actually reduce the number of abortions in this country, it does show that their overriding objection is not to abortion per se - but the behavior that precipitates it.