House votes to protect contraception right over Republican objections

The U.S. House approved a bill mostly along partisan lines on Thursday to guarantee access to contraception in all states as Democrats warned that the U.S. Supreme Court had opened the door to striking down the constitutional right to birth control.

The bill passed 228 to 195, with eight Republicans joining all Democrats in support. The five Oklahoma members of the House voted against the bill. Senate prospects for the bill are uncertain.

“While the right to contraception is legal today, we must act to ensure this remains true in the future,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-NJ. “This legislation does exactly that, by enshrining the right to contraception in federal law.”

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma City, argued that Democrats were “fear-mongering at the highest degree” and said a recent study found 84% of Republican primary voters support safe access to contraceptives. In a speech on the House floor, Bice said she had introduced a bill to prevent states from banning access to contraception but would not “protect the use of pregnancy-ending medication such as chemical abortion pills.”

Bice and the other Oklahoma members joined the majority of Republicans in backing a motion to allow FDA-approved forms of contraception to be sold without a prescription; Democrats voted the motion down.

The House votes on Thursday were the latest prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization striking down the high court’s precedents on abortion. In reversing Roe v. Wade and criticizing the underpinning of the 1973 decision, the court’s conservative justices raised alarms about other precedents recognizing unenumerated rights. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the court should reexamine some of those prior decisions, including ones on gay marriage and contraception.

The House voted Tuesday to protect gay and interracial marriage and voted last week to make abortion a federal right and, separately, to ensure women have the right to travel to another state to receive an abortion. Most Republicans voted against all of the bills.

The right to contraception stems from the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down a state law banning contraception because it violated the right to “marital privacy.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Thursday that the Democratic bill “deals with 57 years of constitutional law, since 1965, when Griswold was decided 7-2. It was not a controversial opinion with the American people. Nor, frankly, is this bill controversial of whatever faith you may be … Birth control allows women and their partners to make essential decisions about their health and their lives, including whether to have children and start a family. That is a consensus in America. Overwhelmingly.”

The bill, HR 8373, says, “A person has a statutory right under this Act to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception, and a health care provider has a corresponding right to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.”

Republicans complained that Democrats had rushed the bill to the floor without seeking input from them.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, said the bill was a “Trojan horse for more abortions … It allows Planned Parenthood and abortion providers to prescribe both on- and off-label drugs to be used for abortions without any restrictions. Additionally … Democrats included a definition of contraception that is not limited to FDA-approved products.”

Pallone said the bill defines contraceptives “as those legally marketed under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Nothing prevents FDA to remove unsafe products from the market.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: House approves right to contraception over Republican objections