195 House Republicans Vote Against Bill
Washington, DC – Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) today led House passage of a bill to protect the right to contraception. The Right to Contraception Act establishes a statutory right to obtain and use contraceptives and gives health care providers the right to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception. The bill also protects against any state laws that attempt to restrict access to contraceptives. Video of Pallone’s floor remarks is available here.
“Republicans want to control women’s lives and their bodies. Contraception is basic preventive health care and is crucial to the health and human rights of all people. Millions of people rely on contraception not only to prevent unintended pregnancies but to also prevent and treat a wide range of medical conditions. Access to contraception is essential to achieving gender equality as it advances women’s health and economic empowerment,” Pallone said. “This bill ensures that Republicans cannot limit people’s access to contraceptives. It also ensures that health care providers can provide contraceptives and information about them - free from political interference.”
Last week, Pallone led House passage of two bills to protect the right to abortion. By overruling Roe v. Wade, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court called into question the constitutionality of contraception and the other rights that stem from the right to privacy guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling also provided a roadmap for future courts to reconsider and overrule the right to contraception and other fundamental rights.
In his concurrence in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Clarence Thomas contended that the Court should reconsider “all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [v. Connecticut]” – the landmark case that first recognized the Constitutional right to use contraceptives, stemming from the right to privacy.
Some Republican legislators, including legislators in Idaho and Louisiana, have used the Dobbs decision as an opening to try to block or ban certain contraceptive methods such as emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices (IUDs). Governors in Republican-led states, such as Mississippi, have refused to rule out banning contraception as a next step following the decision in Dobbs, while other Republican legislators and candidates have called the precedent in Griswold “constitutionally unsound,” “wrongly decided,” and “an issue that should have been left up to the states.”
These extreme proposals are a continuation of decades of efforts by Republicans to gut family planning services, restrict access to care, and roll back the clock on women’s access to reproductive health care services at the state and federal level.
Original source can be found here.
