Democrats in the House will vote on a phony “contraception” bill today that merely promotes abortion and funds Planned Parenthood, America’s biggest abortion business. The bill is a disingenuous way to make it appear pro-life Republican members of Congress are so extreme that they oppose contraception.
But the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is not fooled and it has informed members of Congress that it is scoring a vote on the bill as a vote abortion and abortion funding. it opposes the H.R. 8373, the Democrats’ “Right to Contraception Act,” which it says is better described as the Payouts for Planned Parenthood Act.
The SBA score letter reads in part: “Far from being a bill that simply allows for access to contraception, this bill seeks to bail out the abortion industry, trample conscience rights, and require uninhibited access to dangerous chemical abortion drugs.”
The letter points out that, although domestic family planning was federally funded at nearly $1.8 billion in FY 2020, this legislation:
- Seeks to guarantee funding to abortion businesses by barring federal and state governments from redirecting contraception funding to life-affirming health care providers.
- Would override state and federal freedom of conscience laws.
- Explicitly excludes application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
- Could overturn laws regulating chemical abortion and mandate access to dangerous abortion drugs, due to its overbroad definition of contraceptives.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews: “Nancy Pelosi and pro-abortion Democrats will stop at nothing to ensure the abortion industry led by Planned Parenthood has a steady flow of taxpayer dollars to prop up their brutal business. Abortion is violence and no health care provider should ever be forced to be complicit. Moreover, with thousands of pregnancy and health centers across the country that vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities and offer women real choices, the abortion industry does not need or deserve tax dollars. The Payouts for Planned Parenthood Act is just the latest ploy for the Democrats to impose abortion on demand until birth nationwide and funnel money to the abortion lobby that is spending $150 million to get them elected. They will be held accountable for their radical, deeply unpopular agenda.”
ACTION ALERT: Urge a no vote on this pro-abortion legislation, go here to contact your member of Congress.
Meanwhile, National Review writer John McCormack has also exposed the pro-abortion nature of the legislation. He also notes how it would violate federal law.
House Democrats — eager to paint Republicans as opponents of a legal right to contraception — are rushing toward a vote on a bill this week that would establish a nationwide right to receive and distribute all FDA-approved contraceptives, superseding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is a 1993 law that establishes a balancing test for courts to use when deciding religious-liberty cases involving federal laws and regulations. RFRA was overwhelmingly popular when it passed the House on a voice vote (where it was sponsored by then-congressman Chuck Schumer) and passed the Senate on a 97–3 vote in 1993. But since then, Democrats have turned against the law, in the wake of courts’ ruling that RFRA protects conscientious objectors such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns who care for the elderly poor, from having to violate their religious beliefs in order to carry out Obamacare’s 2012 contraceptive mandate.
When Democrats held a vote earlier this year for the first time in Senate history on legislation that would “codify Roe v. Wade,” two pro-Roe Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, opposed the legislation because it went beyond Roe in several important respects, including its provision superseding RFRA. A joint press release sent out by Collins and Murkowski noted, “Congress has never before adopted legislation that contains an exemption to this religious liberty law.”
By including the same poison-pill language about RFRA in their “Right to Contraception Act,” Democrats appear to be taking a page from their 2012 playbook: picking a fight over religious liberty in order to portray Republicans as opposing the legal right to contraception.
He notes that the bill would also block states from defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion company.
While pro-life Republicans have repeatedly voted for billions of dollars in federal funding of contraception — both in the Title X program and Medicaid — they object to providing funding that subsidizes Planned Parenthood, an organization that performs hundreds of thousands of abortions each year. McMorris Rodgers pointed out that the Democratic contraceptive bill would “send more taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, freeing up more funds for them to provide abortions and end the lives of the most helpless among us.”
And it would create a so-called right to abortion drugs to kill babies.
What’s more, the so-called “contraception” bill could create a federal right to Mifepristone, the abortion drug used to kill an unborn baby during the first ten weeks of pregnancy.
ACTION ALERT: Urge a no vote on this pro-abortion legislation, go here to contact your member of Congress.
