House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sarcastically suggested Thursday that Democrats hold a session to teach Republicans about “the birds and the bees” in light of the current debate on contraception.
“Should we have a session on the birds and the bees?” asked the California Democrat.
“I wonder if some of my Republican colleagues understand the basics about birth control, family planning and what is happening in their own homes,” she added. “They want control — but we won’t give up our rights and we are not going back!”
Should we have a session on the birds and the bees? I wonder if some of my Republican colleagues understand the basics about birth control, family planning and what is happening in their own homes.
They want control — but we won’t give up our rights and we are not going back!
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) July 21, 2022
In the aftermath of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Pelosi has repeatedly warned Americans that their “freedom to use contraception” or to “marry the person” they love is on the line.
Democrats are pushing the Right To Contraception Act, legislation that would “protect a person’s ability to access contraceptives and to engage in contraception, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.”
“It is outrageous—we keep using that word—60 years after Griswold was decided, 60 years after Griswold, women must again fight for our basic right to birth control against an extremist Republican Party,” Pelosi said Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Let us be clear: we are not going back. For our daughters, or granddaughters, we are not going back.”
The Right To Contraception Act would supersede the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
John McCormack with National Review notes: “The Democrats’ ‘Right to Contraception Act’ explicitly condemns (in one of its official findings) state conscience laws that protect health-care providers who refuse to offer contraception (a term that the bill says includes sterilization procedures).”
“By including the same poison-pill language about RFRA in their “Right to Contraception Act,” Democrats appear to be taking a page from their 2012 playbook,” McCormack notes, “picking a fight over religious liberty in order to portray Republicans as opposing the legal right to contraception.”
The House of Representatives passed the bill Thursday, which comes after the House passed a bill Tuesday that would codify same-sex and interracial marriages: The Respect for Marriage Act.