Democrats and reproductive-rights advocates are laying the groundwork for state-by-state battles over access to contraception — an issue they hope to turn against Republicans in 2024.
WASHINGTON — One year after Justice Clarence Thomas said the Supreme Court should reconsider whether the Constitution affords Americans a right to birth control,
“It’s going to be up to Republicans to choose whether they want to protect the right to contraception,” Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., sponsor of the failed Senate bill, said in an interview before the governor’s veto. Markey called the Dobbs decision “a preview of coming atrocities.” But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says IUDs work “mainly by preventing fertilization of an egg by sperm.” And the Food and Drug Administration said last year that Plan B does not prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb, and cannot be considered an abortion pill.
Writing for the majority in the Dobbs case, Justice Samuel Alito stressed that the ruling “concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right.” But in a concurring opinion, Thomas said the Supreme Court should reconsider other rulings, including Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that established the right of married couples to use contraception. He said the logic of the majority opinion in Dobbs undermined Griswold.
At the same time, the federal family planning program known as Title X is being challenged in Texas, where a federal judge ruled late last year that it violated parents’ constitutional rights by permitting clinics to provide birth control to teenagers without parental consent. If the ruling is upheld, it could threaten access to contraceptives for minors nationwide.
But Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev., one of the bill’s chief sponsors, said she did not know if the measure’s backers could get any Republican support in the current post-Dobbs climate. “We think that we should,” she said, “but, you know, it’s a different and challenging time right now.”
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