WASHINGTON (CN) — The House voted Thursday to enshrine access to contraception into federal law, the latest move by Congress to protect constitutionally understood rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The Right to Contraception Act, which passed the chamber by a vote of 228-195, would guarantee the federal right to contraceptives that was first declared in the Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut.
It would ban states from restricting access to the pill, IUDs and emergency contraceptives while also giving both the attorney general and medical providers the authority to bring civil lawsuits against governments that restrict contraception access.
The legislation comes three weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the high court decision providing the right to an abortion was “egregiously wrong from the start,” rescinding a federal right that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years.
Several states immediately enacted abortion bans in response to the ruling, with some states considering restrictions on birth control, particularly morning-after pills such as Plan B, now that their state laws define life as beginning at conception.
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