The politically explosive legislation engineered by U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt has halted progress on the nation’s multi-billion highway bill, galvanized many religious groups and provided fodder for Democrats seeking campaign cash from women.

“It’s time to end Republicans’ unrelenting war on women,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a fundraising letter this afternoon on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Likewise, an appeal from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., today on behalf of Senate Democrats aserted that Blunt’s legislation “would let any employer deny coverage for any health care treatment for any reason.”

Blunt, of Missouri, and a half-dozen other GOP senators held forth for an hour arguing that the new health insurance law violates religious liberty protections that have around since the nation’s early days.

The issue has mushroomed since the Obama administration’s mandate requiring coverage of contraception services for employees of religious-affiliated institutions. The White House later revised the rule to shift the cost of birth control to insurance coverages. But that distinction did nothing to quell the outrage from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and many other organizations.

Blunt and others are fighting to frame the debate as the mandate’s threats to religious freedom. But critics argue that the amendment that bears Blunt’s name amounts to a broadside against the new health insurance law and poses special threats to women.

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Sen. Jean Shaheen, D-N.H., contended that the new Congress has brought “assaults on Planned Parenthood, on federal funding for family planning and on contraception.”

“But now, we’re facing the Blunt amendment, which is even more far-reaching and extreme than any of these other efforts to politicize women’s health,” she asserted. “In short, the Blunt Amendment would let your boss make your health care decisions instead of you and your doctor.”

Go to Congress.org, look up your Senators (you have two) and send them an email telling them to vote NO on the Blunt amendment - you will find all the contact info there .  Then write down the phone numbers for their DC and district offices and give them a call. Or just call Call 1-888-838-5169. Don’t delay - the vote will be tomorrow.