House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused some Republicans of wanting to “criminalize” birth control during a news conference on Wednesday while she unveiled legislation protecting access to contraceptives.
She also mocked anti-birth control GOP lawmakers by claiming they have no touch on intimate relationships within their own households – causing those in attendance to laugh.
“It’s clear that their attempts to turn back the time on contraception is yet another item on the extreme agenda — their extreme agenda — for America’s women,” Pelosi said.
The spokesman pointed to legislatures that had or were working on legislation banning certain forms of contraception.
“In Idaho and Louisiana, Republicans are putting this plan into action to remove, outlaw, or criminalize birth control,” she said, before stabbing, “Ask yourself if they even know what’s going on in their own homes.” yourself?
The House of Representatives will vote on the Right to Contraceptive Act Thursday, the speaker said, after legislation protecting same-sex and interracial marriages was passed earlier this week.
House Democrats are rushing to protect rights they fear are now at stake after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and relegated the abortion issue to the individual states.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of Democratic women in her chamber to introduce legislation protecting access to birth control, which she will vote on Thursday
Pelosi and other left-wing leaders have come under fire from their constituency for failing to codify access to abortion in the five decades that Roe has set the precedent.
An attempt to do so passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives last week but faces poor prospects in the evenly divided 50-50 Senate.
And on Tuesday night, 47 Republicans joined Democrats to pass the Respect For Marriage Act, which ensures federal protections for same-sex and mixed-race couples to prevent those rights from being rescinded. the back.
The bill would also repeal the controversial Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Bill Clinton, which defined legal marriage between a man and a woman.
The fate of this bill is still unclear in the Senate — although it is reportedly supported by Republican Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, it’s not clear if the bill can get the 60 votes needed to move forward . GOP Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida are reportedly opposed to the measure.
The majority opinion of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which Roe reversed, specifies that the ruling applies only to the abortion issue.
However, Judge Clarence Thomas set alarm bells ringing across the country when he wrote in a unanimous opinion that the Supreme Court could reconsider landmark cases legalizing same-sex marriage, same-sex intimacy and access to contraception for married couples.
“As you all know, three weeks ago a radical Republican-occupied Supreme Court erased precedent and privacy by dismissing Roe v. Wade fell,” Pelosi said Wednesday.
“In doing so, they are putting even more of our cherished freedoms on the chopping block, including the right to contraception.”
Pelosi went on to accuse Republicans of always being against contraceptive use.
At the end of the press conference, she claimed that GOP lawmakers even stood in the way of legislative progress on the “rhythm system,” a form of unaided family planning that allows women to track their ovulation cycles.
She fumed at “the hypocrisy of it all,” before adding, “But I’ve been told not to talk about her hypocrisy.”
“It’s about control. They don’t like birth control, but they want to control women. And we can’t let that happen,” Pelosi said.
“For decades I fought them – they didn’t even support the rhythm system when we tried to make adjustments. They wouldn’t even support that. They insist on no-holds-barred conversations about it.
She also ended the press conference urging Republicans to cross the aisle in a bipartisan unity demonstration around the bill.
“We want this law to be passed in a non-partisan way. But if not, the American — we’ll remember that in November,” Pelosi warned.