WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama, grappling with a political firestorm that threatened to consume his administration, unveiled a birth control compromise Friday that he said would both protect religious liberties and ensure that women have access to free contraception. Capping weeks of growing controversy, Obama announced he was backing off a newly announced requirement for church-affiliated employers to provide free birth control coverage even if it runs counter to their religious beliefs. Instead, workers at such institutions will be able to get free contraception directly from health insurance companies. "Religious liberty will be protected and a law that requires free preventative care will not discriminate against women," Obama said in an appearance in the White House briefing room. The president's abrupt shift was an attempt to satisfy both sides of a deeply sensitive debate, and most urgently, to end a mounting political nightmare for the White House. Although the administration had originally given itself more than year to work out the details of the new birth control coverage requirement for religious employers, the president acknowledged that the situation had become untenable and demanded a swift solution. Congressional Republicans as well as GOP presidential hopefuls were beating up on Obama relentlessly over the issue, and even Democrats and liberal groups allied with the Roman Catholic church were defecting. "After the many genuine concerns that have been raised over the last few weeks, as well as frankly the more cynical desire on the part of some to make this into a political football," Obama said, "it became clear that spending months hammering out a solution was not going to be an option. That we needed to move this faster. He said he directed the Department of Health and Human Services last week to speed up the process from a matter of months to days. The leader of one Catholic organization and a prominent women's group both expressed initial support for the changes. "The framework developed has responded to the issues we identified that needed to be fixed," Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, a trade group representing Catholic hospitals that had fought against the birth control requirement, said in a statement. Planned Parenthood also backed the revisions, saying the Obama administration was still committed to ensuring all women have access to birth control coverage, no matter where they work. "We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman's ability to access these critical birth control benefits," Cecile Richards, the women's group president, said. But the U.S. Conference of Bishops withheld its endorsement, saying it was too early to say if Obama's policy changed had met core concerns of the Catholic church. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., an ardent support of the original measure, was restrained in her response. I appreciate the president's unifying approach as we work to ensure that the American people continue to receive the benefits of health care reform. By keeping free contraception for employers at religious workplaces - but providing a different way to do it - Obama was able to assert he gave no ground on the basic principle of full preventive care that matters most to Obama. Yet, it also was clear that the president felt he had no choice but to retreat on a three-week-old policy in the face of a fierce political furor that showed no signs of cooling. Officials said Obama has the legal authority to order insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers. Before announcing the revamped policy at the White House, Obama called Keehan, Richards and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But the change just led to more criticism from some of Obama's opponents. Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady said the revamped rule marked a "full scale retreat by a disconnected president who now knows that Washington shouldn't force American to abandon their religious convictions." Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while not commenting directly on Obama's decision, told a conservative conference in Washington that if elected, "I will reverse every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent life in this country." The furor has consumed media attention and threatened to undermine Obama's re-election bid just as he was in stride with improving economic news. Instead, the employer's insurance company must provide birth control for free in a separate arrangement with workers who want it. Those services include well-women visits, domestic violence screening and contraception, all designed to encourage health care that many women may otherwise find unaffordable. The White House says covering contraception saves insurance companies money by keeping women healthy. But the plan is likely to meet resistance from insurers. Although administration officials are right that contraception is cost effective, insurers may well argue that it's not free, either. And the industry might balk at what amounts to a coverage mandate on it. Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this story.