Democrats are inserting the right to chemical abortions into legislation that claims to protect contraceptives in the latest push to codify abortion across the country after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Although Planned Parenthood is not specifically named in the bill, it is clear surgical abortion centers will be included in the funding.
Emergency contraception includes abortifacients, which can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall.
The Senate’s “Right to Contraceptive Act” says, in part:
The term ‘‘contraception’’ means an action taken to prevent pregnancy, including the use of contraceptives or fertility-awareness based methods, and sterilization procedures.
The term ‘‘contraceptive’’ means any drug, device, or biological product intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy, whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs, that is legally marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, such as oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, internal and external condoms, injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches, and vaginal rings, or other contraceptives.
The bill also targets 12 states that the text says have laws in place to limit access to contraceptives, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas.
“Providers’ refusals to offer contraceptives and information related to contraception based on their own personal beliefs impede patients from obtaining their preferred method,” the bill states.
The Washington Examiner interviewed Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser about the bill:
The bill’s broad definition of contraceptives, which applies to “any device or medication used to prevent pregnancy, whether specifically used to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs,” may also create federal protections for chemical abortion.
Other health needs “could include noncontroversial applications of the drug but could also include the use of the drug to induce abortion,” Dannenfelser wrote in a letter to Congress.
Dannenfelser wrote:
Because the definition of contraceptives in this bill is overbroad, it could mandate access to abortion drugs. H.R. 8373 states that contraceptives include drugs, devices, or biological products intended for contraception, “whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs.” This could include noncontroversial applications of the drug but could also include the use of the drug to induce abortion. What follows is that H.R. 8373 would then require the right to obtain a chemical abortion, the right to provide a chemical abortion, and would overturn any law that regulates chemical abortion by singling it out.
Democrats’ claims, however, fly in the face of what the U.S. Supreme Court said in its Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe, including specifically naming contraceptives as being completely unrelated.
The Examiner report continues:
“Rights regarding contraception and same-sex relationships are inherently different from the right to abortion because the latter (as we have stressed) uniquely involves what Roe and Casey termed ‘potential life,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
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