House Democrats have advanced a bill to establish a statutory right to contraception, part of the party’s reaction to the Supreme Court‘s ruling last month that there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), cleared the House Rules Committee on Monday, setting up a final vote later this week. The legislation would codify a person’s right to use birth control and protect healthcare providers’ ability to provide contraceptives and relevant information to patients. It would also protect specific contraceptive methods, devices, and medications used to prevent pregnancy, including oral contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, and intrauterine devices.
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The bill’s introduction last week was a direct response to Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in which he said the court should reexamine the case that guaranteed the right to contraception, Griswold v. Connecticut.
“There’s nothing [in the bill] that mandates contraception — it simply says that people have the right to plan their families, to have contraception, and that healthcare providers have the right to discuss contraception with their patients,” said Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA). “This is about as simple as bills get.”
The bill does not issue any mandates or do anything new, and some Republicans on the House Rules Committee called it a solution in search of a problem. But Democrats took Thomas’s concurring opinion last month to mean that because the constitutional underpinning for abortion rights failed, contraception rights could be next. They have a dual purpose in introducing it. Passing the bill would provide assurances that people will not lose their right to the birth control that their healthcare providers believe is right for them. And even if it fails, the bill also gives Democrats currency in the 2022 midterm elections.
Republicans, meanwhile, argued that the bill goes far beyond just guaranteeing the right to contraception. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) called it a “Trojan Horse for more abortions,” alleging that it would allow certain contraceptives to be used off label to induce abortions and would preempt state oversight of Planned Parenthood, both of which Schrier adamantly denied.
The future of contraceptive access looks murky to some on the Left who are tracking efforts in state legislatures to limit access to birth control. In Louisiana, for example, a House committee passed a bill in the spring saying that “human personhood” begins at the point of fertilization, a designation that could potentially be used to outlaw Plan B emergency contraception drugs as well as intrauterine devices.
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“We’re seeing these bills across the country in Republican legislatures and governors bringing up this issue of banning certain types of contraception as interfering in that space,” Schrier said. “At the same time, we are having these extreme abortion bans go into place across the country, so there is more urgency than ever to make sure that we prevent as many pregnancies as possible for people who want to prevent pregnancy.”
