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This week the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to take up the Right to Contraception Act. The bill, introduced by Rep. Kathy E. Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina, establishes a federal right to contraception--meaning women would have the right to use birth control and medical providers and pharmacies the right to provide it.
This bill would put into law a right that the Supreme Court addressed three times over the past half-century, when it granted married couples the freedom to use birth control in Griswold vs. Connecticut in 1965, then in two other cases when the right to contraception was extended to unmarried people and then to minors.
Contraception is recognized internationally as preventive healthcare and an essential tool for women to plan the course of their lives. But as we have learned in the last month, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has no problem overturning precedents. Alarmingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurrence in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, urged the court to reexamine Griswold as well as the 2015 Obergefell decision granting same-sex couples the right to marry and the 2003 Lawrence decision that overturned laws prohibiting gay sex. Given that the court just overturned Roe vs. Wade, it's impossible to disregard the possibility that these other essential freedoms are now at risk.
Every single member of Congress should vote for the Right to Contraception Act. But if the squabbling over the bill in the Rules Committee on July 18 is any indication, that won't be the case. And that's an outrage.
After Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington state and a physician, laid out the basics of the bill, she was met with a cavalcade of criticism and an attempt to slow-walk it by Republicans who complained they hadn't been asked to work on the bill with Democrats or given a chance to air their concerns.
Over and over, Schrier explained that the bill was simple and straightforward. "It is not about abortion. It's about contraception," she said, stating the obvious and adding that medication abortion pills are not prescribed as contraceptives. "It has nothing to do with sterilization. These are all red herrings. There is nothing confusing in the bill. It is a straightforward bill that says women, people, have a right to contraception, and doctors, healthcare providers, have a right to prescribe it. It doesn't make anybody do anything," Schrier said.
Americans should be aghast. For more than half a century, they have enjoyed the right to buy and use birth control, and the freedom that contraceptives give women--and men--to decide if and when they want to become parents.
* Guest editorial by The L.A. Times