Senate Republicans on Thursday successfully blocked a “radical” contraception bill, which they say undermined parental rights and religious liberty.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
“In the coming weeks, Senate Democrats will put reproductive freedoms front and center before this chamber so that the American people can see for themselves who will stand up to defend their fundamental liberties,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, with CBS News noting that the bill was not expected to pass.
Democrats sold the bill as one that would codify the right to contraception in federal law. Lawmakers cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision — which overturned the invented federal right to abortion created under Roe v. Wade — and claimed the right to contraception may similarly be under threat if the Supreme Court ever decided to overturn its previous decisions upholding access.
“Today, we live in a country where not only tens of millions of women have been robbed of their reproductive freedoms. We also live in a country where tens of millions more worry about something as basic as birth control,” Schumer said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor. “That’s utterly medieval.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republicans and pro-life groups countered that access to contraception is not under threat and accused the bill of being a trojan horse that disregards the views of many Americans.
Ahead of the vote, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) led a majority of senators in a memo calling the revival of the bill an effort to deceive voters and “score cheap political points.”
“There is no threat to access to contraception, which is legal in every state and required by law to be offered at no cost by health insurers, and it’s disgusting that Democrats are fearmongering on this important issue to score cheap political points,” the memo read, concluding:
This bill infringes on the parental rights and religious liberties of some Americans and lets the federal government force religious institutions and schools, even public elementary schools, to offer contraception like condoms to little kids. It’s just another way for Democrats to use activist attorneys and our courts to advance their radical agenda and that is why we oppose this bill.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Leading pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America also put out a statement ahead of the vote, warning that the bill would override conscience protections. The bill’s text explicitly states that it would override the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
“While pro-life Americans celebrate two years of lives protected in the Dobbs era this June, Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer are planning a month-long campaign of fearmongering and demonizing pro-life protections,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said:
The Democrats’ deceptive Payouts to Planned Parenthood Act has less to do with access to contraception than with funneling taxpayer dollars to the abortion industry and crushing dissent. Contraception is legal and available in every state and Congress funds contraception through numerous federal programs every year.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“With this bill, the devil is in the details. It requires taxpayers to bail out profit-driven abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, where expectant mothers are sold abortions 97% of the time,” she continued. “It could even go so far as to create a ‘right’ to abortion drugs. It’s clear the Democrats’ priority is not helping women, but helping the abortion lobby that spends millions to get them elected.”
