A commentary on Trump and the Republican Party’s actions in the states has put access to contraceptives in the spotlight in 2024

CHICAGO– Republican lawmakers in U.S. states have rejected Democratic efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, an issue that Democrats are promoting as a major issue in this year’s election along with abortion and other birth control concerns. of reproductive rights.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, thrust the issue into the political spotlight this week when he said in an interview that he was open to supporting restrictions on contraception before reversing course and said he “never has and never will.” Advocate to restrict access to birth control. He went further in the post on his social media platform, saying “I do not support banning birth control, nor does the Republican Party.”

But recent moves in governors’ offices and state legislatures across the country tell a more complicated story about Republicans’ positions on contraception, in a context that reproductive rights advocates warn is a slow rollback of access.

“Contraception is not as simple an issue for the Republican Party as Trump’s statement suggests,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and a leading scholar of abortion policy. Bills against contraception have failed in both Congress and the states. Contraception is more contested than most people realize.”

Trump’s comments this week and the growing intensity of the contraceptive fights at the state level provide an opening for Democrats, who seek to capitalize on the issue as a potent booster of voter turnout in the fall — just as abortion has been since the U.S. Supreme Court. USA. The court nullified a constitutional right to the procedure two years ago.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he wants a vote as early as next month on a bill to protect access to contraception that is similar to one the U.S. House passed in 2022, when Democrats controlled the House. Even if this legislation fails to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster hurdle, it will put Republicans on the record on an issue that resonates personally with a broad swath of the electorate.

Voters have already demonstrated that they broadly support abortion rights, even in conservative states like Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, where they have sided with abortion rights advocates on ballot measures over the past two years. The legislative tangle over access to contraception has been less visible, but that has begun to change as the abortion debate begins to branch into other areas of reproductive rights.

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, vetoed bills from the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would have protected the right to contraception, saying he supports the right to it but that “we cannot trample on religious freedoms.” of Virginians. ” He also said in his veto message that the measure would have interfered with parental rights.

A women’s health bill in Missouri has been stalled for months due to concerns about expanding insurance coverage for birth control, after some lawmakers falsely confused birth control with medication abortion. In March, Arizona Republicans unanimously blocked a Democratic effort to protect the right to access contraception, and Tennessee Republicans blocked a bill that would have clarified that the state’s abortion ban would not affect contraceptive care or treatments. of fertility.

Indiana has adopted a law that requires hospitals to offer women receiving Medicaid coverage long-term reversible implantable contraceptives after giving birth — but only after taking the IUD off the bill. That move was taken over objections from Democrats and some health care providers.

The Republican-controlled Oklahoma Legislature has advanced legislation that many reproductive rights advocates have warned could ban emergency contraception and IUDs. And on Tuesday, the same day Trump made his remarks to a Pittsburgh television station, Louisiana lawmakers advanced a measure that would make it a crime to possess two abortion-inducing drugs without a prescription, even though women pregnant women were exempt.

“If we look at the policies that have evolved in states since the overturn of Roe, we see Republicans dismantling reproductive rights, including contraceptives,” said Heather Williams, chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

Dr. Gabriel Bosslet, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, raised concerns about some Republican arguments in favor of restricting access to contraceptives. He said, for example, that some anti-abortion groups have called on lawmakers to treat emergency contraception — like the IUD — differently from barrier contraceptive methods like condoms, falsely labeling them as “abortives,” claiming that induce abortions.

Emergency contraception is also referred to as an “abortive” in the Republican Party’s Project 2025 manual, which is a blueprint for ways to reshape the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential victory this year.

“This is part of a slow rollback of access to contraception,” said Bosslet, who testified against the Indiana bill.

In Wisconsin, Democrats introduced a bill intended to protect access to contraception last year, but it never received a hearing in the GOP-controlled state Assembly or state Senate before the two-year session ended in March. Senate Democrats tried to pull the bill out of committee in February and force a floor vote, but all 22 House Republicans voted against the measure.

Asked Wednesday why the bill never gained traction, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, a Republican, said his caucus would rarely allow Democrats to take such a step regardless of the issue, although he also said he was not familiar with the details of the measurement. After a reporter read him parts of the bill, LeMahieu said the legislation seemed redundant.

“People can now get contraception,” he said. “I don’t know why we would need to approve this project.”

About half of states had legislation this year to establish a legal right to contraception, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports reproductive rights. As of May 1, the group found, the only state where one of these measures had passed either legislative chamber was Virginia — although the bill was vetoed by the Republican governor.

Parental involvement in teens’ access to birth control has also become a point of contention since an April ruling upheld a Texas law that requires teens to obtain parental consent. Reproductive rights advocates warned that the ruling could open the door for other states to restrict teens’ ability to access contraception. However, efforts to place emergency contraceptives or “morning after” pill vending machines on college campuses have also sparked outrage from anti-abortion groups.

Although Trump has sent mixed messages on reproductive rights, President Joe Biden has attacked his positions and highlighted their potential consequences. Biden’s campaign warned this week that Trump, in light of comments his campaign later rejected, would support other states taking similar steps to restrict access to contraceptives.

“If Donald Trump returns to office, this terrifying agenda could spread across the country,” Ellie Schilling, a professor at Tulane Law School, said in a conference call with reporters.

On that same call, Biden supporters noted that when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 1973, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion that disturbed advocates of reproductive freedom. He suggested that the court also reconsider previous opinions that banned bans on contraceptives, sodomy and same-sex marriage.

Ziegler, a UC Davis law school professor, said the same legal reasoning behind the decision to overturn Roe could be used against access to contraception. If anti-abortion groups present the false argument that certain contraceptive methods induce abortion, she said they could use the Comstock Act to try to restrict the distribution of materials related to contraception. The 19th century law was revived by anti-abortion groups who sought to stop the abortion drug mifepristone from being mailed.

“We are seeing a borrowing from the anti-abortion playbook and seeing incremental attacks on contraception,” she said.

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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, and Isabella Volmert in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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