Democrats' most aggressive pushback has been to flip the proposal on its head by focusing on cost. Under the Affordable Care Act, women with an insurance plan can get birth control dispensed for free with a prescription. So yes, Democrats argue, any woman could technically gain access to birth control by walking into a pharmacy without the extra step of seeing a doctor, but the price tag for the medication without insurance would put it out of reach for more women. Many experts have pegged the potential cost of the pill without insurance at $600 a year.

“I’m open to have birth control dispensed over the counter, but I would want to ensure that insurance companies continue to have to pay for it. Birth control is very expensive. And that’s the assurance that we can’t get from Carl,” Representative Scott Peters told me last week, referring to DeMaio, his Republican challenger in the tight race for California's 52nd District.

Meanwhile, groups that tend to support Democrats are bending over backward to avoid praising Republicans in an election season. They have also seized on the insurance question.

“Recent political discussions on the importance of (over-the-counter) access to contraceptives are welcome,” John Jennings, president of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told BuzzFeed, “but ACOG remains firmly in support of comprehensive strategies to increase adoption of more effective methods and to provide all women with the contraceptives they need at no cost.”

Planned Parenthood's political arm launched identical ads targeting Gardner in Colorado and Tillis in North Carolina. Both are "turning the pill into another bill,” the ad warns.

Look past Planned Parenthood's political activities, though, and the veil slips. The group just unveiled a pilot program in two states that lets patients consult with a health professional online and receive birth control by mail, bypassing an in-person doctor visit. The takeaway: Planned Parenthood thinks a mandatory office visit is too burdensome, too.

Democrats also complain that the over-the-counter push is a deflection to hide Republicans' long anti-women records.

In the Colorado Senate race, MoveOn.org and NARAL have teamed up for an ad knocking the Republican candidate, Representative Cory Gardner, that argues his support for over-the-counter birth control is just his attempt to district from his history of backing "personhood" measures that could sharply limit abortion access. Similarly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee panned DeMaio's over-the-counter birth-control plan as a desperate attempt "to change the subject by pretending to be on the side of California women" in a press release.

EMILY's List, a group that boosts pro-choice candidates, went the same route, telling Talking Points Memo: "If they really cared about issues that mattered to women they wouldn't have spent years politicizing not only access to birth control or access to healthcare, but also their paychecks."