From Vanity Fair: Republicans Proudly Declare They’re Against Making Contraception a Federal Right

As we discuss in class, aside from the small number of rights specifically stated in the First Amendment everything else is subject for debate. Since Dobbs v Jackson, this could also mean birth control.

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On Wednesday, Senate Republicans rejected the Right to Contraception Act, a Democratic bill that would stop the federal government and states from passing laws limiting access to birth control. Speaking to The Washington Post, Senator Joni Ernst called the bill “fear-mongering,” and introduced one that does not protect access to the morning-after pill. Senator John Cornyn claimed Democrats are holding a “phony vote because contraception to my knowledge is not illegal. It’s not unavailable. To suggest that it’s somehow in jeopardy should be embarrassing, but it’s hard to embarrass some people around here.”

Of course, what people like Cornyn don’t note is that that’s the exact argument Republicans used to make about abortion, before the federal right to the medical procedure was summarily scrapped. Referring to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s 2022 declaration that the court “should reconsider” some of its past decisions, including the one protecting access to contraception, Senator Mazie Hirono told ABC News: “Whenever a Supreme Court justice, especially in the MAGA far right, says he wants to revisit a case, you can bet that he’s looking to overturn.” In a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned: “A few years ago it was Roe. A few years from now it could be something else. We are kidding ourselves if we think the hard right is done with their attacks on reproductive rights.”

Last month, Donald Trump was asked in an interview, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?” And rather than saying a simple “no,” he responded: “We’re looking at that, and I’m gonna have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting. And it’s another issue that’s very interesting, but you will find it, I think, very smart; I think it’s a smart decision. But we’ll be releasing it very soon.”