Schumer plans vote on 'constitutional right to contraception' in bid to protect Senate Democrat majority
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to put Republicans on record on birth control, contraception with fast-tracked vote
By Danielle Wallace Fox News
Published May 22, 2024 7:40am EDT
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is planning a vote on the "constitutional right to contraception," in an election-year move aimed at protecting Democrats' control of the Senate.
The majority leader is expected to fast-track a vote next month on the Right to Contraception Act. Though it likely won’t pass with most Republicans opposing the bill, Schumer wants to put senators in the opposing party on record on contraception and birth control access during an election year, The New York Times reported.
The bill’s language says it "sets out statutory protections for an individual's right to access and a health care provider's right to provide contraception and related information."
"This is a clarifying political vote that will put every Republican on record as to whether or not they believe in a constitutional right to contraception," the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., told the New York Times.
Senate Republicans last year blocked Markey's effort to pass a version of the bill without debate, arguing the legislation could also apply to pills that induce abortion, not simply birth control.
Replaying strategy used in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Senate Democrats are hammering Republicans on not only abortion, but birth control and contraception access.
Schumer hosted a press conference outside the Capitol on Tuesday with Planned Parenthood doctors dedicated to discussing "how Republican abortion bans are hurting health care providers and worsening access to care for millions of people." He claimed that "far right Republicans have been working systematically to dismantle a woman's fundamental right to choose, and they've been working at it for decades."
"So today we're here to say loud and clear, Democrats stand with women, and with our nation's health care providers," Schumer said. "We will never, ever stop fighting against these Republican attacks. We will never, ever stop fighting to take back these rights from the far-right extremists who want to impose their views on the country that overwhelmingly do not agree with them."
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