WASHINGTON ( Associated Press) — The right to access contraceptives will be hammered into law under a measure Democrats are pushing through the House, their latest campaign-season response to concerns that a conservative Supreme Court that has ruled federal abortion rights has destroyed can go ahead.
The House plans to vote on the legislation on Thursday and send it to the Senate, where its fate seemed uncertain. The push underlines that Democrats are latching onto their own version of the culture-war battle Appeal to female, progressive and minority voters by casting the court and Republicans as extremists with the intention of eroding rights granted for years.
Wade, GOP lawmakers want to do more than just ban abortion, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now that the “radical, Republican-stacked Supreme Court” overturned a 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
“Those of us who’ve been in Congress for a while can tell you they’ve been against contraception, family planning, birth control the whole time,” said Pelosi, D-Cal. “This is their moment. Clarence Thomas has made it clear. They are right down to the fundamentals of privacy they want to erode.”
Wade last month, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should now review other precedents. He referred to decisions that affirm same-sex marriage rights In 2015, same-sex intimate relationships in 2003 and contraceptive use by married couples in 1965.
Thomas did not specify a 1972 decision that legalized the use of contraceptives by unmarried people, but Democrats say they also consider it at risk.
Thomas and congressional Republicans are “about one thing, control,” said Rep. Kathy Manning, DNC, the main sponsor of the contraceptive bill, which has about 150 co-sponsors, all Democrats.
“These extremists are working to take away women’s rights, to take away our right to have children, to take away our right to control our lives and our bodies. And we don’t Let it happen,” she said.
John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is close to GOP leaders, said he doubts the law could win the Republican support it would need to survive in the Senate. Democrats there have introduced a contraceptive bill similar to the House version.
“I think it’s pure hysteria” by Democrats, Cornyn said of the contraceptive rights bill. He said “it’s not in danger” is being repealed.
House Democrats have begun to impose votes on these and other issues related to privacy rights., energizing or at least sympathetic voters and donors hoping for a long-term victory and forcing Republicans from competing districts to tough spots. The House voted last week to revive the nationwide right to abortion, With every Republican voting numbers, and voted largely along party lines to ban prosecuting women traveling in states where abortion is legal.
The House voted on Tuesday to keep same-sex marriage legal, with 47 Republicans backing the measure with all Democrats. Although 157 Republicans did not vote, that tally raised hopes that the bill could win support from at least 10 GOP senators and get the 50 votes needed to approve the 50-50 Senate, sending it to President Joe Biden. sending for his signature.,
The Contraceptive Bill explicitly allows the use of contraceptives and empowers the medical community to provide them while covering “any device or drug used to prevent pregnancy”. Examples listed include oral contraception, injections, intrauterine devices such as implants and emergency contraception, which prevent pregnancy several days after unprotected sex.
The bill lets federal and state governments, patients and health care providers bring civil suits against states or state officials who violate its provisions.
Gay marriage can gain such wide public acceptance that a growing number of Republicans are willing to vote for it. But anti-abortion groups oppose the contraceptive law, and it remains to be seen whether a significant number of GOP lawmakers are willing to make that break.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said the law “needs to bail out the abortion industry, trample on rights of conscience, and unfettered access to dangerous chemical abortion drugs.” The National Right to Life Committee said it “goes far beyond the realm of contraception” and would include abortion pills such as RU486, which supporters called wrong.
Spokesmen for House GOP leaders did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the legislation.
The measure drew mixed reactions from the two more moderate Republicans in the Senate.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Main, said she was “most likely” to support the measure. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she was working on bipartisan legislation that she said would codify the rights to abortion and perhaps contraception.
There are some state restrictions on contraceptive use, said Elizabeth Nash, who studies state reproductive health policies for the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Nash said he is concerned that there will be efforts to curb emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices and help providers and institutions refuse to provide contraceptive services.
