Expressing support for contraceptive rights and access in the United States and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding comprehensive reproductive health care.

Whereas the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that any concept of liberty must include the right to make personal decisions about bodily integrity, autonomy, family, and relationships; Whereas June 7, 2022, marks the 57th anniversary of the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479 (1965)) decision in which the Supreme Court first held that the Constitution protects the right to use contraception; Whereas Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 U.S. 438 (1972)) confirmed the constitutional right of all people to legally access contraception regardless of marital status; Whereas Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)) established that the constitutional right to privacy includes the right to abortion; Whereas the Supreme Court is now (as of the date of adoption of this resolution) considering Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (141 S.Ct. 2619 (2021)), a case that the Justices could use to overturn or severely undermine Roe v. Wade; Whereas a leaked draft opinion of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization signals the intent of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade; Whereas the gutting or overturning of Roe v. Wade threatens precedent protecting marital, familial, and sexual privacy, including the right to contraception, that has been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court, including in Obergefell v. Hodges (576 U.S. 644 (2015)), and relied upon in this country for almost 60 years; Whereas the overturning of Roe v. Wade will activate trigger laws Whereas the Office of Women’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services defines contraception as any method, medicine, or device used to prevent pregnancy Whereas States have attempted to define abortion expansively so as to include contraception in State bans on abortion and have also restricted access to emergency contraception; Whereas access to contraception is crucial to people’s ability to decide if and when to have children and control their own bodies and well-being; Whereas the United States has a long history of reproductive coercion, including the childbearing forced upon enslaved women, as well as the forced sterilization of Black women, Puerto Rican women, indigenous women, immigrant women, and disabled women, and that these abuses continue to occur; Whereas contraception is key to sexual and reproductive health, as it prevents unintended pregnancy, is highly effective in preventing and treating a wide array of often severe medical conditions, and decreases the risk of certain cancers; Whereas family planning improves health outcomes for women, their families, and their communities and reduces rates of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity; Whereas the ability to prevent, plan, and space pregnancies is critical to people’s educational attainment and economic advancement, and has been vital to advancing equal opportunity and economic security for women; Whereas fully one-third of the wage gains women have made since the 1960s are the result of access to oral contraceptives; Whereas access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion, is essential to women’s equality under the law; Whereas the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as the ACA Whereas the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement has been under attack from and undermined by those who would allow employers to dictate contraceptive decisionmaking for employees; Whereas restrictions on contraceptive access deny people the ability to determine when and if to become pregnant, make essential health care cost prohibitive, and infringe on people’s constitutional rights; Whereas contraceptive care and coverage restrictions disproportionately impact people of color, working class and low-income people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, young people, and people with disabilities; Whereas title X is the only Federal program dedicated to providing family planning services for people with low incomes, but has come under increasing attack in the past 10 years; Whereas providers’ refusals to offer contraception based on their own personal beliefs impede patients from obtaining their preferred method, with laws in 12 States specifically allowing health care providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception; Whereas violations of the Medicaid free choice of provider requirement, thus far in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, infringe on people’s ability to access their contraceptive care; Whereas insurance plans and pharmacy benefit managers fail to comply with the contraception coverage requirement, with insurance plans routinely refusing to cover certain contraceptive products, imposing administrative hurdles like prior authorizations and step therapy, and requiring unallowable patient cost sharing; and Whereas any policy that restricts contraception, including long-acting reversible contraceptive methods and emergency contraception, erodes existing legal protections thereof, or limits coverage thereof, imperils people’s receipt of essential health services and the associated gains in social equality: Now, therefore, be it That the House of Representatives— (1) affirms that people deserve access to the contraception and related services that they want or need, when they want or need them, without any obstacles; (2) affirms that contraception is essential to people’s equality under the law, health outcomes, economic security and empowerment, and capacity to effectuate essential and time-sensitive decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures; (3) affirms that substantive due process rights protecting marital, familial, and sexual privacy include access to contraception and abortion; and (4) condemns restrictions on access to and coverage of contraception.

Summary: This resolution supports access to contraception and related reproductive health services, including by affirming the substantive due process rights that protect such access.