A Democrat-led effort to pass a bill that would have enshrined protections for contraception access failed in the Senate Wednesday.
Senate Republicans largely voted against the “Right to Contraception Act,” which would codify the right to contraception in federal law.
The vote to advance the measure failed with 51 votes in favor to 39 votes against, with only two Republicans voting with Democrats. It needed 60 votes to advance.Â
GOP lawmakers argued the bill “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.”
But Democrats insisted that the bill, which was introduced after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, was a way to protect women’s access to contraception.
“Today, we live in a country where not only tens of millions of women have been robbed of their reproductive freedoms. We also live in a country where tens of millions more worry about something as basic as birth control,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor. “That’s utterly medieval.”
Several Senate Republicans say Wednesday’s vote was not about protecting women’s
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