Senate Republicans blocked an effort to pass a bill to protect access to contraception this week.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, both Democrats, were both co-sponsors on the Right to Contraception Act. The vote was 51-39 with two Republicans voting with Democrats but the vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill to final passage.
The Right to Contraception Act would protect access to contraception. Some Republicans have called it a political messaging bill, meaning that it is designed to send a message to a party’s base support that the legislators care about an issue.
But some activists have warned that contraception could be another battle ground. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said in his concurring opinion on the court’s Dobbs decision that the court should reconsider other landmark cases that relied, similarly, on the 14th amendment and cited a case that involved contraception in 1965 as one that the court should revisit.
Some Republican policy makers have been conflating birth control with abortion medication. Republicans in some states have also blocked Democrats’ efforts at passing state legislation to protect the right to contraception at the state level.
Next week, the Senate is expected to take a similar vote on a bill to protect the right to in vitro fertilization. Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that an embryo has the same rights as a child, which shut down IVF clinics in that state. Alabama enacted a bill shortly afterward that allowed IVF clinics to resume business again but the Alabama legislature did not address the “personhood” issue.
Luján said that this week, “Democrats took action once again to protect women’s reproductive freedoms.”
“Republicans in Congress, state legislatures, and on the courts are doing everything possible to roll back women’s rights. I won’t let this stand. I voted to protect women,” he said by email.
Heinrich said in a statement that “once again, Senate Republicans have blocked legislation to protect women’s right to contraception under federal law. Shame on them.
“While Republicans are bent on stripping women of their reproductive freedoms, I will keep fighting to protect the right of every New Mexican to make their own decisions for themselves and their families. This isn’t over,” he said through a news release.
