Last week the House voted to protect people’s access to contraception nationwide. The bill, named the Right to Contraception Act, would “create a federal right for people to access contraceptives and for doctors and pharmacists to provide them” without government restriction. The act covers “any device or medication used to prevent pregnancy.” Some of the listed examples include oral contraceptives, injections, implants (such as intrauterine devices) and emergency contraceptives.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, “… my three daughters are amazed that this legislation is on the floor. Amazed that there would be a premise that somehow the Constitution did not guarantee to my three daughters the right to make these decisions and not all of us…This is about freedom. This is about individual integrity. And this vote will show the American people where members stand on this question of whether it should continue to be legal for people in this country to pursue family planning as they perceive they want to do.”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 88% of U.S. women of childbearing age who do not want to get pregnant use contraception. The right to contraception has been protected for over 50 years by the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut and we need to ensure that this right remains protected for people to choose whether or not they want to get pregnant.
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