A week ago, Republicans organized a hearing that included a panel of male witnesses talking about President Barack Obama’s new contraception rule. The rule requires religious employers to offer health insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and other birth control services.

As a result, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi organized a meeting with her policy committee to talk about the same rule. In her meeting, Pelosi invited someone the GOP had denied in its hearing — Sandra Fluke, a female witness.

Have we stepped back into the Stone Age? When did it become OK for again for women to sit around while the men make the decisions for everyone? Let’s be real; if you want an opinion about birth control, a woman is your best bet. This is 2012, and women have a voice.

Women sure don’t need a group of men — who don’t know all there is to know about birth control — to make a decision about something so important to their daily lives.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa explained that they had originally denied Fluke because she wasn’t qualified to appear on the panel because the subject was on religious freedom, not health care or birth control.

Either way, the idea that issues directly related to women can be discussed and decided upon without consulting women is absurd.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.