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US House OKs bill to protect contraception from Supreme Court

Published:Thursday | July 21, 2022 | 2:22 PM
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi makes a point during an event with Democratic women House members and advocates for reproductive freedom ahead of the vote on the Right to Contraception Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 20, 2022. She is flanked by Representative Kathy Manning and Representative Lauren Underwood. Democrats are pushing legislation through the House that would inscribe the right to use contraceptives into law. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The right to use contraceptives would be enshrined in law under a measure that Democrats pushed through the House on Thursday, their latest campaign-season response to concerns a conservative Supreme Court that already erased federal abortion rights could go further.

The House's 228-195 roll call was largely along party lines and sent the measure to the Senate, where it seemed doomed.

The bill is the latest example of Democrats latching onto their own version of culture war battles to appeal to female, progressive and minority voters by casting the court and Republicans as extremists intent on obliterating rights taken for granted for years.

Democrats said that with the high court recently overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, the justices and GOP lawmakers are on track to go even further than banning abortions.

“This extremism is about one thing: control of women. We will not let this happen,” said Representative Kathy Manning, who sponsored the legislation.

All of the bill's nearly 150 co-sponsors are Democrats.

Addressing fellow lawmakers, she added, “Women and girls across this country are watching you, and they want to know: Are you willing to stand up for them?”

In his opinion overturning Roe last month, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should now review other precedents.

He mentioned rulings that affirmed the rights of same-sex marriage in 2015, same-sex intimate relationships in 2003 and married couples' use of contraceptives in 1965.

Thomas did not specify a 1972 decision that legalised the use of contraceptives by unmarried people as well, but Democrats say they consider that at risk as well.

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