WASHINGTON – U.S. senators will announce next month whether they will support Democratic legislation that would guarantee access to contraceptives – a right currently being upheld in two Supreme Court cases but one that was highlighted by a conservative justice .
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, announced Wednesday that the chamber would vote on it The invoice in June and said it would lend a hand strengthen women’s reproductive rights at a crucial moment. 60 votes are needed for the bill to pass.
“Today, contraception is more important than ever to protect women’s reproductive freedom,” Schumer said.
Attempting to hold a procedural vote on legislation, which is what happened 49 co-sponsorscame just a day after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, ended his campaign would publish a guideline on contraception in the next week.
Trump seemed open to government restrictions on contraception, but later backtracked in comments on social media.
“We’re looking into that and I’ll have a policy on that shortly, and I think that’s something you’ll find interesting,” Trump said on KDKA in Pittsburgh. “It is another topic that is very interesting. But you will find it very clever. I think it’s a wise decision, but we will release it very soon.”
Trump was asked whether he supported “any restriction on a person’s right to contraception.”
Trump later said, “Things really have a lot to do with the states.” And some states are going to have different policies than others.” That comment came after Trump was asked if he “may want to support some restrictions, like the morning-after pill.” or something like that?”
In Congress
The house approved a bill similar to the July 2022 Senate bill sponsored by North Carolina Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning. The chamber was controlled by Democrats at the time.
This measure defined contraception as “an action taken to prevent pregnancy, including the use of contraceptives or fertility awareness-based methods and sterilization procedures.”
Democrats in the Senate tried to pass their version of the so-called Right to Contraception Act that same month, but Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst blocked the unanimous consent proposal.
Unanimous approval is the fastest way to pass legislation in the Senate, but it allows any individual lawmaker to block passage. There is no recorded vote during this process, but there will be one next month when Schumer holds the procedural vote.
If the bill receives 60 votes, it will pass with a basic majority.
Two years ago, Democrats tried to introduce legal protections for contraception after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This right was established in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade and affirmed in the 1992 decision Casey v. Planned Parenthood.
In a disagreement Opinion In Dobbs, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the justices “should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents,” which relied on the same legal thinking about the right to privacy that the justices cited in Roe and Casey.
Thomas specifically mentioned the cases Griswold v. Connecticut, Obergefell v. Hodges, and Lawrence v. Texas.
The year was 1965 for Griswold case where the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut state law that prohibited married couples from using contraception.
The Supreme Court held that “a right to privacy can be derived from several amendments to the Bill of Rights and that right prevents states from making the use of contraceptives by married couples illegal.”
These rights were extended to unmarried people in 1972 in the case of Eisenstadt v. Baird Verdict.
Kaiser Family Foundation surveys, Approved in March found that 45% of adults believed access to contraceptives was “a secure right that is likely to last.”
Another 21% responded that they believe it is “a threatened right that is likely to be repealed.” A total of 34% of respondents said they were unsure.
