Will the Senate vote to protect contraception access? Lawmakers expected to take up bill this week
WASHINGTON – The Senate will vote Wednesday on legislation that would protect access to contraception at the national level, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced in a letter to colleagues Sunday.
A vote on the bill, which is led by Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, is an effort to force Republicans to stake out a position on a hot-button issue during an election year. Many Republican lawmakers have backed a wide range of abortion restrictions at the state level, and their Democratic colleagues have accused them of wanting to go further.
In the letter, Schumer called the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 "one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of modern times." The decision allowed each state to pass their own abortion rights or restrictions, uprooting national protections for the procedure.
"As horrific as these state abortion bans are, they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the consequences of the Republican attacks on reproductive freedom," he wrote.
The legislation defines contraception as "any drug, device, or biological product intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy."
Though some Republicans may support the bill, most are likely to vote against it and dismiss it as a political messaging play. GOP senators have previously said Republicans back access to birth control, but they don't believe legislation is necessary on the federal level.
Former President Donald Trump said during an interview last month that he was open to restrictions on birth control, but later said he "has never and will never" support such a policy.
The vote is also part of a larger battle for control of the Senate, which Democrats currently hold with a narrow 51 to 49 majority. Democratic incumbents are defending their seats in multiple competitive races this fall.
Other reproductive rights issues have been front and center in Congress as lawmakers look to the election in November.
Democrats in the Senate attempted to hold a vote on legislation that would have protected a federal right to in vitro fertilization, known as IVF, earlier this year after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos should be considered children. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the vote, arguing it was a "vast overreach" from the federal government over states.
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama introduced their own legislation to protect the procedure by blocking Medicaid funding to states that enact an outright ban on IVF. When asked about the bill by reporters, Schumer said, "We have a much better proposal and Republicans ought to support it."