WASHINGTON – Today, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva voted to pass H.R. 8373, the Right to Contraception Act, to protect the rights of individuals to obtain contraceptives and for health care providers to provide contraceptives and information related to contraception. It ensures that neither states nor a hostile Republican administration can limit people’s access to contraceptives or the ability of health care providers to provide contraceptives and information related to them.

“Access to contraception is health care and health care is a human right. With extremist Supreme Court decisions and Republican legislators attacking our rights, I proudly voted to protect the right to contraception and codify it into federal law,” said Rep. Grijalva. “Republicans in Arizona and across the nation want to control women’s lives and their bodies at every level of government and we’re going to fight like hell to prevent this from happening.Millions of women, especially those who are low-income and women of color, depend on contraception as preventative health care. It’s now on the Senate to act to protect this basic right.”

By overruling Roe v. Wade, the Republican-controlled Court has now called into question the constitutionality of contraception and the other rights that stem from the right to privacy guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.  In doing so, the Court has provided a roadmap for future courts to reconsider and overrule the right to contraception and other fundamental rights in the future.

Some Republican legislators, such as legislators in Idaho and Louisiana, have used the Dobbs decision as an opening to try to block or ban certain contraceptive methods such as emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices (IUDs).

Ninety-nine percent of U.S. women who have been sexually active report having used some form of contraception, and 96 percent of voters support having access to contraception. Contraceptive use is crucial to preventing unintended pregnancies, preventing and treating a wide array of medical conditions, and decreasing the risk of certain cancers. Access to contraception advances women’s health, economic empowerment, and equality; it allows people to make decisions about their families and their lives.