Contraception Under Threat From Republicans? You Bet!

 

The Washington Post's Lauren Weber has a good read about Republican actions to limit access, if not outright ban, contraceptives in their ongoing ultra- reactionary campaign to control the reproductive life of Americans.  She reports:

Republican lawmakers in Missouri blocked a bill to widen access to birth-control pills by falsely claiming they induce abortions. An antiabortion group in Louisiana killed legislation to enshrine a right to birth control by inaccurately equating emergency contraception with abortion drugs. An Idaho think tank focused on “biblical activism” is pushing state legislators to ban access to emergency contraception and intrauterine devices (IUDs) by mislabeling them as “abortifacients.”

Since the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion two years ago, far-right conservatives have been trying to curtail birth-control access by sowing misinformation about how various methods work to prevent pregnancy, even as Republican leaders scramble to reassure voters they have no intention of restricting the right to contraception, which polls show the vast majority of Americans favor.

The divide illustrates growing Republican tensions over the political cost of the “personhood” movement to endow an embryo with human rights, which has also animated the debate around in vitro fertilization. Mainstream medical societies define pregnancy as starting once an embryo has implanted in the wall of the uterus. But some conservative legislators, sharing the views of antiabortion activists, say they believe life begins when eggs are fertilized — before pregnancy — and are conflating some forms of birth control with abortion...

Of course, theirs is a toxic position ...

A 2023 Gallup poll found that 88 percent of Americans said birth control was morally acceptable, including 86 percent of Republicans and 93 percent of Democrats.

... which is why this push to control Americans' reproductive freedom has to be a main feature of Democratic messaging in every election up and down the ballot.  It's all part of their reactionary, hypocritical, authoritarian, bonkers agenda (need we cite Wilhoit's law, too?) that's antithetical to the values of freedom and democracy that we hope to preserve for ourselves and our descendants.

UPDATE:  Senate MAGAt Republicans block bill to assure access to contraceptives.

(Photo:  now, get to the polls! / Saul Loeb, AFP via Getty Images)