Right to Contraception Act is supported by 8 in 10 voters according to new polling; 9 in 10 voters believe birth control should be legal
ICYMI: Murray presses Republican witness on access to basic forms of contraception at Senate HELP hearing yesterday
ICYMI: Murray Introduces Right to Contraception Act, Rallies for Birth Control with Members, Advocates
***VIDEO of Senator Murray’s floor speech HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, spoke on the Senate floor ahead of the full Senate vote on the Right to Contraception Act, legislation she helped introduce that would guarantee the right for people to obtain and use contraceptives, and for health providers to prescribe contraceptives and give information related to contraception—free from government interference. Senate Republicans have twice blocked the Right to Contraception Act from passing by unanimous consent—once in 2022 and again in 2023, in a Murray-led effort to pass a series of bills to protect Americans’ fundamental reproductive rights around the anniversary of the Dobbs decision. The legislation passed the House of Representatives in July 2022. This is the first time the Right to Contraception Act has come up for a vote in the Senate.
Yesterday while chairing a HELP Committee hearing titled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America,” Senator Murray pressed Republican witness Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the anti-abortion group American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), on whether women should have access to common forms of birth control. When pressed by Murray, the Republican witness admitted their position is that IUDs are abortifacients—this as AAPLOG is currently working with Republican lawmakers to ban certain forms of contraception by redefining them as abortion. Video of the exchange is HERE.
“As you just heard today, every senator will be confronted with a very simple question: should Americans have the right to contraception? The right to birth control, IUDs, Plan B? That really should not be a hard question—in fact, most Americans thought this matter was settled!” Senator Murray said on the Senate floor today. “The vast majority of the American people, our constituents, support this right, so this should be an easy vote. This bill should pass with flying colors. It almost shouldn’t be necessary—and yet, Republicans have been making clear a bill like this is not only necessary, but it is urgent. Because, not only has Justice Thomas signaled an interest in reconsidering Griswold, not only have senators said Griswold was ‘unsound,’ but there are Republican bills—right now, with large GOP support—that would severely undercut the right to birth control. Like the Life at Conception Act, which is supported by more than half of the Republicans in the House—including the Speaker!”
“This is more than a messaging bill—it is a meaningful way to protect a really fundamental right,” Murray continued. “Democrats are going to keep pushing, full force, to hold Republicans accountable for their extreme policies and the harm they are causing, we will work to restore abortion rights across the country, and to protect women’s reproductive rights across the board.”
The Right to Contraception Act is incredibly popular and supported by eight in ten voters, according to recent polling by IMPACT research. Nine out of ten voters believe birth control should be legal, 74 percent feel this strongly. Seventy-seven percent of voters say they’ve used birth control, and both birth control and emergency contraceptives like Plan B are viewed positively by wide margins. Eighty-eight percent of voters say it’s important to them that all Americans have the right to make their own decision about when to use contraception and what method they use, with 72% saying it’s very important to them.
Senator Murray and other lawmakers first introduced the Right to Contraception Act following Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence to the Dobbs decision that called for the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the right to contraception that was first recognized more than half a century ago in Griswold v. Connecticut. Since the Dobbs decision, emboldened Republican-controlled state legislatures have ramped up efforts to restrict access to birth control—with many states adopting restrictions on emergency contraception alongside other increased threats to contraception access.
The Right to Contraception Act would protect access to contraception by:
- Creating a statutory right for individuals to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception;
- Establishing a corresponding right for health care providers to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception;
- Allowing the Department of Justice, as well as providers and individuals harmed by restrictions on contraception access made unlawful under the legislation, to go to court to enforce these rights; and
- Protecting a range of contraceptive methods, devices, and medications used to prevent pregnancy, including but not limited to oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, internal and external condoms, injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches, vaginal rings, fertility-awareness based methods, and sterilization procedures.
Over the course of her career, Senator Murray has always fought to ensure widespread access to affordable birth control. She pushed to ensure birth control was covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), led the fight against the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, and has pressed the Biden administration to enforce the ACA’s coverage for contraceptive services. Senator Murray leads the Affordability is Access Act, which would require insurers to fully cover FDA-approved over-the-counter birth control without out-of-pocket costs or a prescription barrier and has pressed the administration to require federally and state-regulated health insurance plans to fully cover over-the-counter birth control. Senator Murray is widely credited with leading the fight to make Plan B available over the counter.
Senator Murray’s floor speech, as delivered, is below:
“Thank you, M. President. As you just heard today, every single Senator will be confronted with a very simple question: Should Americans have the right to contraception? The right to birth control, IUDs, Plan B?
“Now, that really should NOT be a hard question—in fact most Americans thought this matter was settled!
“After all, nearly sixty years ago the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut—and affirmed Americans’ right to privacy, including the right to contraception.
“And today, the right to contraception is overwhelmingly popular. The vast majority of the American people—our constituents—support this right.
“So this should be an easy vote. This bill should pass with flying colors. It almost shouldn’t be necessary!
“And yet, Republicans have been making clear a bill like this is not only necessary—but urgent.
“Because not only has Justice Thomas signaled an interest in reconsidering Griswold; not only have Senators said Griswold was ‘unsound,’ but there are Republican bills—right now, with large GOP support—that would severely undercut the right to birth control.
“Like the Life at Conception Act, which is supported by more than half of the Republicans in the House—including the Speaker.
“That GOP bill would enshrine the truly extreme doctrine of fetal personhood nationwide. That would not just ban abortion, it would outlaw emergency contraception like Plan B, and it would outlaw IUDs. You don’t have to take my word for it!
“I chaired a HELP hearing yesterday on the damage of Republicans’ anti-abortion attacks over the past two years, and I asked the Republicans’ own witness directly—do you view IUDs as abortion? The answer was ‘yes.’
“Let’s be crystal clear, IUDs and Plan B do not cause an abortion. That level of disinformation is chilling—and it cuts to the heart of the issue about what many Republicans really think about contraception.
“So, every time Republicans try to say no one is coming for your birth control well what about every Republican pushing for fetal personhood? Seriously!
“And let’s say Republicans succeed at making fetal personhood the law of the land—I mean, they already succeeded at overturning Roe!
“So, if Republicans enact fetal personhood, what happens to all the women with IUDs?
“Make no mistake: that isn’t simply some provocative hypothetical—if Republicans actually pass the Life at Conception Act, this is a question millions of women will have to grapple with.
“Now I don’t expect an answer from Republicans, and I don’t expect every Republican to be as forthcoming as their witness yesterday when it comes to where they stand on the right to birth control.
“But we are putting every single Senator on the record today when we vote on the Right to Contraception Act.
“This bill is exactly as straightforward and commonsense as it sounds. It simply codifies Americans’ right to birth control into law. That’s it. And you don’t have to take my word for it, read it! It’s 11 pages.
“M. President, this is more than a messaging bill to me—it is a meaningful way to protect a really fundamental right. But it is absolutely right that how each of us votes will send a message.
“So, what message do my Republican colleagues want to send the American people? What message do we want to send our constituents? That we support their right to birth control? That we support access to IUDs, to Plan B? Or that we are okay taking that right away, and letting politicians make medical decisions for women in this country.
“I know where I stand—with the overwhelming majority of people who support that right. And soon we will know exactly where every Republican senator stands too.
“And M. President, whatever happens with this vote, Democrats are going to keep pushing—full force—to hold Republicans accountable for their extreme policies, and the harm they are causing, and we will work to restore abortion rights across the country, and to protect women’s reproductive rights across the board. Thank you.”
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