Eight House Republicans on Thursday voted for a bill that would protect access to contraceptives, nearly a month after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said the bench should reverse a precedent safeguarding access to forms of birth control.
The House approved the legislation, dubbed the Right to Contraception Act, in a 228-195 vote, with all Democrats supporting the measure. Two Republicans voted present, and six did not vote.
The eight Republicans who backed the measure were Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.) and Fred Upton (Mich.).
GOP Reps. Bob Gibbs (Ohio) and Mike Kelly (Pa.) voted present.
Gonzalez, Katko, Kinzinger, Upton and Gibbs are all not running for reelection this year.
It is unclear if the bill will attract enough Republican support in the Senate to pass.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, said it was scoring against the bill, arguing that it would “trample on freedoms of conscience for health care providers” and labeling its definition of contraceptives as “overbroad.”
The legislation calls for codifying access to contraceptives on the federal level — which would permit individuals to receive and use birth control and allow health care providers to supply such products to patients. It also authorizes the attorney general, health care providers and others to take civil action against states that are in breach of the bill.
The legislation protects a wide variety of contraceptives, including oral and emergency medications, intrauterine devices and condoms.
House passage comes nearly one month after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected access to abortion as a constitutional right. In a concurring opinion, Thomas said the bench should “reconsider” all substantive due process precedents, including Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling that protects the right of married couples to use contraceptives.
The majority opinion, however, said, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Mace wrote on Twitter that she supported the contraceptives bill because South Carolina, her home state, is considering an abortion bill that does not include exceptions for rape and incest. A state House panel on Tuesday said it will not recommend the exceptions in its draft abortion legislation.
“My state is banning almost all exceptions for women including rape & incest victims. Today I voted to protect access to contraceptives — to protect every woman in South Carolina. You can’t ban abortion and then not protect women’s access to contraceptives,” Mace said.
In the Capitol on Thursday, the congresswoman wore a blazer that had pieces of duct tape with the words “My State is Banning EXCEPTIONS. Protect CONTRACEPTION” written on them secured to the back.
She told reporters ahead of the vote that “if you’ve been a victim of rape, you should have access to emergency contraceptive.”
A spokesperson for Gibbs told The Hill that the congressman “wasn’t going to play Democrats’ BS games trying to create fake outrage.”
The spokesperson also claimed that Democrats “don’t want solutions or bipartisanship, they want the campaign issue” because they opted for their own bill over a Republican-sponsored measure that would allow oral contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be acquired over the counter.