About four weeks after the Supreme Court reversed the national right to an abortion, the House passed legislation July 21 to secure the right to contraceptives, according to CNBC.
When the court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the Court has "a duty to 'correct the error'" of other cases concerning the right to privacy, including the 1965 case protecting the nationwide right to use contraceptives. His opinion prompted legislators to draft the Right to Contraception Act, which the House passed with a 228-195 vote, according to The Hill.
It's unclear whether the bill will make it through the evenly split partisan Senate, The Hill reported.
The legislation is the latest federal effort to respond to the Supreme Court decision that has left healthcare workers scrambling to provide care without stepping into legal landmines. The White House is floating a measure to protect access to medication abortion as demand for the two-drug regimen spikes, and on June 13, the HHS clarified to the nation's 60,000 retail pharmacies that denying consumers to reproductive products is discriminatory.
With nearly half of the nation's states banning or planning to outlaw abortion, there have been shockwaves hitting reproductive health products such as emergency contraceptives, condoms, and medication abortion, an FDA-approved regimen that can induce an abortion within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.