President Biden called on Congress to legislate Roe v. Wade protections back into federal law after Senate Republicans blocked a bill to grant a nationwide right to birth control.
“[Vice President Kamala Harris] and I believe that women in every state must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions,” the President’s social media team posted to his X, formerly Twitter account on Wednesday.
“We’ll continue to fight to protect access to reproductive health care and we urge Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law,” the tweet noted.
.@VP and I believe that women in every state must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions.
We’ll continue to fight to protect access to reproductive health care and we urge Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 5, 2024
On his personal account, Biden’s campaign team attacked Trump and MAGA Republicans for refusing to protect women’s rights.
“Senate Republicans just refused to protect a woman’s right to birth control,” the tweet read. “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have made it clear: they aren’t stopping at overturning Roe v. Wade. Our rights and freedoms are on the ballot.”
The Democrats’ contraception bill encountered a significant hurdle when a procedural vote failed on Wednesday, with Republicans blasting the the wide-ranging legislation over parental rights and religious liberties.
The Senate rejected the “Right to Contraception Act” with a 51-39 vote. For the bill to advance, it needed 60 votes.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. led the vast majority of Republican senators in criticizing the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote, suggesting it was a ploy by Democrats to “score cheap political points.”
“It’s just another way for Democrats to use activist attorneys and our courts to advance their radical agenda and that is why we oppose this bill,” Scott and 21 other GOP senators wrote in a statement on Tuesday.
Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Ted Cruz, R-Texas; and more claimed that the legislation “infringes on the parental rights and religious liberties of some Americans and lets the federal government force religious institutions and schools, even public elementary schools, to offer contraception like condoms to little kids.”
The proposed legislation, which Republicans deemed excessively wide-ranging and superfluous, sought to ensure individuals’ right to access and use contraception like birth control pills, IUDs, the “morning after” pill. It also sought to allow healthcare providers to offer related services and information.
Additionally, the legislation would bar the federal government and every state state from implementing or carrying out any law, rule, or regulation that restricts the sale or use of contraception.
“It’s ‘show-vote’ season in the Senate,” Senate Pro-Life Caucus Chair Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., remarked on Wednesday.
“This is another example of Democrats bringing forward deeply deceptive legislation to make political points and try to offer cover to vulnerable Democrats,” she noted.
Democrats essentially admitted to pushing the vote forward in an attempt to get Republicans to publicly oppose these efforts ahead of the upcoming elections.
“This is not a show vote. This is a show-us-who-you-are vote,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stated at a press conference before the vote.
“Today every Senator must take a stand: if you agree all Americans deserve access to contraception, then vote yes on the Right to Contraception Act,” he said on the Senate floor.
Call it the morning after pill if you like, but it is nothing less than an abortion pill, not contraception.