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It may not have seemed necessary for the U.S. Senate to pass a bill protecting Americans’ right to contraception. However, with recent Supreme Court rulings — and comments from some of its justices — long-held rights shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Last week, the Senate failed to move forward with a bill that would have enshrined a right to access contraception in federal law. The bill was blocked after all but two Republican senators opposed the measure. Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski were the only Republicans who voted to advance the bill. A similar bill in the Republican-controlled House faces long odds of making it to the floor for a vote.
Collins said if the bill had advanced in the Senate she planned to seek amendments to better protect religious liberty. Last year, Collins introduced the Reproductive Freedom for All Act with Sens. Murkowski, Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona. That bill would codify the right to obtain and use contraception, while also maintaining conscience protections for health providers who have religious objections to contraception use. That bill remains in committee.
Although Collins voted to proceed with the Democratic bill on June 5, she criticized last week’s vote as a “messaging attempt.”
Affirming reproductive rights, including a right to contraception, is not a messaging attempt when those rights are being threatened, diminished and taken away.
Protecting the right to abortion didn’t seem necessary until the Supreme Court, with three conservative justices nominated by then-President Donald Trump, overturned the nearly 50-year precedent set by Roe v. Wade. With that court decision nearly two years ago, the floodgates to anti-abortion legislation were opened.
Fourteen states now ban abortion and another seven states have restrictions that go beyond the standard set in the Roe decision. Additional bans are being considered by courts in several states. Maine broadened its laws covering access to abortion care after the Dobbs decision.
It is not hard to imagine a similar rush by many states to restrict access to birth control methods if the current Supreme Court is asked to consider the right to contraceptive access, which the court supported in 1965.
In the 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he suggested that several other cases that relied on the right to privacy be reconsidered. These included rulings on same-sex marriage and contraception.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in the Dobbs case, has long been critical of the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
The court is expected to issue rulings this month on cases involving access to medication abortion and to emergency health care for women who are experiencing dangerous pregnancy complications.
These decisions could signal if the court is moving toward further undermining the rights of women to control their own bodies and health. They could also highlight the need for federal laws to protect those rights.
With Supreme Court justices publicly calling for a reconsideration of the fundamental rights of their fellow Americans, moving to protect those rights with federal laws is about much more than messages. It is about protecting those rights. The U.S. Senate missed an opportunity to do that when a bill to protect access to contraceptives stalled last week.