By Kaili Joy Gray
Daily Kos Staff
Sure, the Republican Party wants to convince voters they really aren’t that radical when it comes to reproductive rights. But voting against a bill to protect access to birth control isn’t the way to do it.
On Wednesday, almost every Senate Republican voted to block the Right to Contraception Act—legislation that should be uncontroversial and unobjectionable. Only two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted to let the bill move forward.
“The right to contraception is a fundamental right, central to a person’s privacy, health, wellbeing, dignity, liberty, equality, and ability to participate in the social and economic life of the Nation,” the bill states. So yes, you can see why Republicans—who don’t value any of those things—took issue with it.
Of course, that’s not the justification they’re giving.
“This is a show vote. It’s not serious,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said. “It’s a phony vote because contraception, to my knowledge, is not illegal. It’s not unavailable.”
Sure, it’s not illegal or unavailable now. But that’s hardly the point.
The point is that there are plenty of Republicans who’ve said it should be illegal or at least unavailable or at least highly restricted.
One of those Republicans is Donald Trump. Perhaps Cornyn’s heard of him? Just last month, Trump said that contraception, like abortion, should probably be decided by the states. He also promised a “very comprehensive” plan he’s yet to deliver.
Another one of those Republicans Cornyn might know? Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has not been quite as explicit as Trump. But pretty close. In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health—the case that overturned Roe v. Wade—he wrote that the court should next overturn Griswold v. Connecticut, the case that recognized a right to birth control.
And it’s because of those threats to birth control that Senate Democrats want to act now to protect the right to contraception before it’s too late.
"Today, we live in a country where not only tens of millions of women have been robbed of their reproductive freedoms. We also live in a country where tens of millions more worry about something as basic as birth control," Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. "That's utterly medieval."
It’s not just utterly medieval; it’s also a threat. First, abortion and next up: birth control.
"If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a recent “60 Minutes” interview. That’s the lesson Democrats have had to learn the hard way.
The lesson Republicans are now learning the hard way is that fighting to get rid of a freedom the majority of Americans supports is really unpopular. Really super very unpopular. Which is why they’ve been scrambling to find a way to talk about it without sounding like the radical extremist freaks they are.
And it’s why Senate Republicans are now pretending they don’t have a problem with contraception—they just don’t like the bill to protect it.
“We will have an alternative that will make very clear that Republicans are for contraception,” GOP Whip John Thune said. Yeah, sure they will. And what will make their bill better?
According to Iowa’s Joni Ernst, who’s supposedly working on her own bill, it will be better because it will cover less contraception. No, that’s not a joke.
“It does not include Plan B, which many folks on the right would consider abortive services,” she said. The fact that “many folks” consider emergency contraception “abortive services” does not make it so. And that’s according to actual doctors, not radical right-wing activists.
But it’s those radical right-wing activists Republican senators can’t resist, even as they’re trying to convince voters they really aren’t that radical. So they’ve blocked a bill to protect contraception, with only the empty and vague promise to voters that there’s no need to worry, it’s perfectly safe. For now.
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