The ‘Right to Contraception Act’ Is a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Abortion and Transgender Surgeries: Experts

The Senate voted Wednesday to block a bill putatively designed to protect a woman’s right to birth control. Experts say its vague wording would establish the “right” for young people to undergo transgender surgeries, taxpayer-funded contraception and abortifacients, and could even be interpreted to legalize abortion. It would also erode religious liberty protections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced a vote on the so-called “Right to Contraception” Act (S. 1999) in a “Dear Colleague” letter. The bill defines contraception as any “action taken to prevent pregnancy, including” but not limited to “the use of contraceptives or fertility-awareness-based methods and sterilization procedures.” It makes no mention of parental consent or notification. And since the bill does not define pregnancy, and since the Left often refers to abortion as “terminating a pregnancy,” experts say the bill could legalize any procedure that impacts the reproductive system.

“The so-called Right to Contraception Act would be better titled, ‘The Right to Abortion and Gender Transitions for Minors’ Act,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The bill’s definition of contraception as ‘any action taken to prevent pregnancy’ begs the question — at what point? Does this mean that a person has the right to prevent pregnancy before the egg and sperm are fertilized or after? Does it mean a child has the right to prevent pregnancy from ever occurring by undergoing gender transition surgery? There’s no definition of pregnancy in this bill, and that is certainly intentional, because Democrats want to slip in a right to abortion while America looks the other way.”

“Democrats constantly try to twist language to convince the American public that they aren’t trying to push their anti-woman, anti-child agenda,” Szoch added.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, agreed, describing the bill as “a Trojan horse for a very sinister aim: to establish in federal law a right for minors to undergo sterilizing sex-change procedures.”

“All it will take is one far-Left judge to interpret it this way for every state-level protection for gender-confused kids to be wiped out,” Schilling added.

The text of the bill itself endorses scientifically inaccurate assertions about women’s health, would override religious freedom bills, and balloons the legal definition of “sex” to include homosexuality and transgenderism.

“Many contraceptives are highly effective in preventing and treating a wide array of medical conditions and decrease the risk of certain cancers,” states the bill.

In fact, the conventional estrogen-and-progesterone birth control pill (E+P) is a Group 1 carcinogen. The pill reduces a woman’s risk of developing endometriosis and ovarian cancer — but increases her risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer, and a Danish study has linked hormonal contraception to cancer of the glands (adenocarcinoma) and skin cancer (squamous cancer).

Despite this record, the bill insists contraceptives are “associated with improved health outcomes for women, their families, and their communities and reduces rates of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity.” While many forms of birth control may prevent pregnancy, hormonal contraceptives may also act as potential abortifacients by interfering with implantation of a newly-conceived baby.

Science textbooks confirm that life begins at fertilization or conception.

Since the bill does not define “pregnancy,” Szoch and others say the bill could be interpreted not just to prevent fertilization but to stop a pregnancy from being carried to term. Pro-abortion activists hold that a child has no rights until the moment of birth, so the bill’s imprecision could become grist for a pro-abortion legal fight, they warn.

“There’s always a lot more than meets the eye” in Washington, said FRC President Tony Perkins. “This bill, as I read it, would protect chemical abortion pills.”

“That’s absolutely right. It all depends on which federal prosecutor” gets the case, replied Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. Although a state may not feel certain procedures fall under the bill’s definition of contraception, “Merrick Garland might feel it does,” setting off rounds of costly federal litigation and subjecting voters to the decree of a judicial activist.

The “Right to Contraception” Act would erase religious liberty protections, stating that it “supersedes” all other federal law “including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.”

The bill targets conscientious “refusals to offer contraceptives and information related to contraception based on their own personal beliefs” and argues that this would “impede patients from obtaining their preferred method of contraception.” It further grouses that “laws in 12 [s]tates as of the date of introduction of this [a]ct specifically allow health care providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception” based on their faith or moral objections. The act establishes a private right of action for anyone to sue the state government or “any government official” who allegedly impedes their “right” to obtain any contraceptive. And it praises Obamacare’s controversial HHS mandate requiring employers to furnish female employees with insurance plans that include contraceptives with no co-pay, even if the employer and employee both have religious objections.

The bill could also compel taxpayers to fund abortifacient “contraception.” The bill condemns states that allegedly “tried to ban access to some or all contraceptives by restricting access to public funding for these products and services.” It also bemoans Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, which do not allow state Medicaid funds to go to family planning offices that carry out abortions. Planned Parenthood, which received $699.3 million in taxpayer funding in 2023 largely from Title X “family planning” funds, strongly supports the bill.

The left-wing legislation proclaims that contraception is a “human right” based, in part, on the authority of global governance bodies. “Access to contraceptives is internationally recognized by the World Health Organization as advancing other human rights such as the right to life, liberty, expression, health, work, and education,” the bill declares. The Senate vote comes just days after WHO released a report restating its commitment to providing adolescents with abortion and contraceptives without parental knowledge or consent, even during pandemics.

“The primary problem with blithely declaring contraception ‘a fundamental right’ is that it forces others, including those who believe that it is a serious sin, to fund it and thereby participate in it,” Rev. Shenan Boquet, president of Human Life International, told TWS. Roman Catholicism formally condemned birth control in the 1930 Pope Pius XI encyclical Casti Connubii and most clearly in Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humane Vitae. Protestants hold various teachings on the matter. “Contraception contributes to a culture of death by creating an environment in which children are treated as an unwelcome burden, an impediment to personal goals, or even worse, an enemy to be avoided at all costs,” said Boquet.

The law attempts to conflate sex with sexual preference and transgender status, stating the bill covers people of every demographic group and “sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation).” It adds that birth control is “especially critical” for “LGBTQ+ people,” whose sexual practices are by nature sterile and unfruitful. Since puberty blockers, transgender injections, and gender-related surgeries can cause sterilization, experts say the bill could be interpreted to cover them.

The bill claims that unspecified “environmental inequities” prevent some people from obtaining contraceptives.

Social liberals have a long history of establishing new “rights” via a combination of ambiguously-worded legislation and expansive interpretation by judicial activists.

Most recently, Ohio’s Issue 1, which passed last November, established a state constitutional right for any “individual” in the state, of any age, to make “reproductive decisions.” During the election, the issue’s supporters and national media fact-checkers dismissed concerns the bill would establish the right for minors to undergo transgender procedures as “misinformation.” But three weeks after the election, Ohio Democrats introduced the “Reproductive Care Act” (H.B. 343), which stated that “reproductive health care … means gender affirming care” — and cited Issue 1 as proof.

The federal right to abortion grew out of Supreme Court cases that claimed the Constitution contained a right to contraceptives. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), justices explained their ruling that the Constitution gives married couples an unalienable right to use hormonal birth control by saying: “The Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” This created a “right to privacy,” allowing couples to use birth control, they wrote. Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) broadened the “right” to contraception to cover unmarried people. Carey v. Population Services International (1977) extended the “right” to birth control to minors.

The case that discovered the “right” to abortion, Roe v. Wade (1973), built on this jurisprudence by asserting the “right to privacy” established a “right” to “sexual privacy,” which establishes that abortion is “protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbra.”

“The fundamental ‘right to privacy’ fabricated by activist jurists and progressives seek a new definition of marriage, human sexuality, and family,” Boquet told TWS. “Instead of protecting natural rights, Griswold v. Connecticut and the subsequent cases trampled upon real natural rights, forcing society to shift from real marriage to ‘faux’ marriage, from a natural act of husband and wife open to begetting children, to the reinterpretation of human sexuality, marriage, and the conjugal act. With Griswold, there are dire consequences to the common good because fundamental inalienable rights are eroded or abrogated. Liberty has degenerated into license, and ‘rights’ are a dispensation of government.”

The new bill may be laying similar legal traps in a post-Dobbs era, conservatives warn. “Here we go again with the Democrats’ favorite playbook,” warned Schilling. “They introduce a policy ostensibly to advance some popular goal — but in the details lurks a radical change which the vast majority of Americans oppose.”

Republicans say Democrats hope to bolster President Joe Biden’s flagging presidential campaign by portraying Republicans as eagerly attempting to recreate “The Handmaid’s Tale” in the United States — something they say is a recurring theme for liberals. Former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos injected the non-issue of banning birth control into a 2012 presidential campaign while moderating a Republican primary debate. Democratic rhetoric about an alleged Republican “war on women” dominated the next several election cycles. “With nothing but show votes and vulnerable incumbent [Democrats], Senator Schumer is in full election mode,” said Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) on social media.

The “Right to Contraception” Act is “a purely political messaging bill. And it is a straw man: There is no one talking about removing contraception availability in any state,” Harris told Perkins. “They want this entire election to be about contraception and abortion.”

The “Right to Contraception” Act was introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and backed by 42 co-sponsors, including Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Embattled New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who changed his party registration from Democrat to Independent after facing allegations of foreign influence-peddling, also backs the bill. Its House companion bill, H.R. 4121, has 203 cosponsors, all Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).