After overturning Roe vs. Wade and abortion rights via the Dobbs case, the Republican Party and its supporters are now planning to restrict birth control and the Griswold vs. Connecticut decision, which made access to birth control a constitutional right. See also Jessica Valenti’s essays Part I and Part II.
The Republican Party and its allies are trying to ban birth control by distorting science and calling some forms of birth control a type of abortion, including IUDs and hormonal birth control (birth control pills, emergency contraception / morning after pills). For example:
Students for Life, one of the country’s most powerful anti-abortion groups, states that IUDs, emergency contraception and hormonal birth control cause abortions.
Conservative institutions and individuals are redefining pregnancy as beginning at fertilization, in contrast to the medical definition of when the fertilized egg implants in the uterus (see the fact sheet of Concerned Women for America at Contraception v. Abortion. This is important because emergency contraception and IUDs do disrupt implantation and so would cause abortions under this false definition.
In 2014, the Hobby Lobby company argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that they should not have to cover employees’ birth control related health care because IUDs and the morning after pill end pregnancies, using this false definition of pregnancy. Although false, the company still won its case.
In the Dobbs case, in a separate opinion, Justice Thomas called for a review of the Griswold decision, as well as cases invalidating sodomy laws (Lawrence) and establishing gay marriage as a constitutional right (Obergefell). See also here.
Birth control has not yet been banned, but it will be unless enough of us work hard to keep it legal. This is a partisan issue. If you believe the right to birth control is important, you need to become more politically active and vote Democratic. On this issue, there is a clear distinction between those who support birth control (Democrats) and those who oppose it (Republicans). Even Republican elected officials who claim to support the right to birth control are unlikely to actively oppose legislation that limits it, similar to how they are reluctant to vote against anti-abortion rights measures, no matter what they say.
In my opinion, abortion rights were abolished at the federal level because too many people were not politically active and did not vote Democratic. As a result, we elected a Republican President and Senators who appointed and confirmed Justices and judges that overturned the federal right to abortion. Even at State and local levels, Republican legislatures, Governors, judges and local governmental officials currently are eliminating abortion rights or making them more difficult to obtain. This will happen again for the right to birth control unless enough of us get more politically active and vote Democratic (see also here).
Recommended daily blogs on women’s reproductive rights:
News From The States - Reproductive Rights Today
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