Title: 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.
Policy area: Health

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

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1155 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1155

 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.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              June 7, 2022

  Ms. Manning (for herself, Mr. Nadler, Ms. DeGette, Ms. Stevens, Ms. 
Escobar, Ms. Lois Frankel of Florida, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Titus, 
 Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. Speier, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr. 
Connolly, Ms. Stansbury, Ms. Norton, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. Levin 
  of Michigan, Mr. Evans, Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. 
    Brown of Maryland, Ms. Chu, Mr. Khanna, Mrs. Lee of Nevada, Mr. 
 Cardenas, Ms. Barragan, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Malinowski, Mr. Blumenauer, 
 Ms. Adams, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Takano, Ms. Jacobs of 
    California, Ms. Williams of Georgia, Mr. Soto, and Ms. Kuster) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
    on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on the 
 Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, 
 in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the 
                jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 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'' in various 
        States that would create a near-total ban on abortion and, in some 
        States, make performing an abortion a felony under State law, and as of 
        this writing, 13 States have already passed trigger laws, while other 
        States have introduced trigger laws in their State legislatures;
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'', and the Centers for Disease Control and 
        Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration identify a wide variety 
        of drugs and devices as meeting this definition, including emergency 
        contraceptives and intrauterine devices;
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'') requires that most insurance plans cover evidence-based 
        preventive services for women, including contraception without cost 
        sharing, and the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 
        62,000,000 women have this coverage;
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
    Resolved, 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.
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