[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1155 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1155
Expressing support for contraceptive rights and access in the United
States and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives
regarding comprehensive reproductive health care.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 7, 2022
Ms. Manning (for herself, Mr. Nadler, Ms. DeGette, Ms. Stevens, Ms.
Escobar, Ms. Lois Frankel of Florida, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Titus,
Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. Speier, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr.
Connolly, Ms. Stansbury, Ms. Norton, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. Levin
of Michigan, Mr. Evans, Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr.
Brown of Maryland, Ms. Chu, Mr. Khanna, Mrs. Lee of Nevada, Mr.
Cardenas, Ms. Barragan, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Malinowski, Mr. Blumenauer,
Ms. Adams, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Takano, Ms. Jacobs of
California, Ms. Williams of Georgia, Mr. Soto, and Ms. Kuster)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on the
Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker,
in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing support for contraceptive rights and access in the United
States and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives
regarding comprehensive reproductive health care.
Whereas the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that any concept of liberty
must include the right to make personal decisions about bodily
integrity, autonomy, family, and relationships;
Whereas June 7, 2022, marks the 57th anniversary of the landmark Griswold v.
Connecticut (381 U.S. 479 (1965)) decision in which the Supreme Court
first held that the Constitution protects the right to use
contraception;
Whereas Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 U.S. 438 (1972)) confirmed the constitutional
right of all people to legally access contraception regardless of
marital status;
Whereas Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)) established that the constitutional
right to privacy includes the right to abortion;
Whereas the Supreme Court is now (as of the date of adoption of this resolution)
considering Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (141 S.Ct. 2619
(2021)), a case that the Justices could use to overturn or severely
undermine Roe v. Wade;
Whereas a leaked draft opinion of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson
Women's Health Organization signals the intent of the Supreme Court to
overturn Roe v. Wade;
Whereas the gutting or overturning of Roe v. Wade threatens precedent protecting
marital, familial, and sexual privacy, including the right to
contraception, that has been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court,
including in Obergefell v. Hodges (576 U.S. 644 (2015)), and relied upon
in this country for almost 60 years;
Whereas the overturning of Roe v. Wade will activate ``trigger laws'' in various
States that would create a near-total ban on abortion and, in some
States, make performing an abortion a felony under State law, and as of
this writing, 13 States have already passed trigger laws, while other
States have introduced trigger laws in their State legislatures;
Whereas the Office of Women's Health within the Department of Health and Human
Services defines contraception as ``any method, medicine, or device used
to prevent pregnancy'', and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration identify a wide variety
of drugs and devices as meeting this definition, including emergency
contraceptives and intrauterine devices;
Whereas States have attempted to define abortion expansively so as to include
contraception in State bans on abortion and have also restricted access
to emergency contraception;
Whereas access to contraception is crucial to people's ability to decide if and
when to have children and control their own bodies and well-being;
Whereas the United States has a long history of reproductive coercion, including
the childbearing forced upon enslaved women, as well as the forced
sterilization of Black women, Puerto Rican women, indigenous women,
immigrant women, and disabled women, and that these abuses continue to
occur;
Whereas contraception is key to sexual and reproductive health, as it prevents
unintended pregnancy, is highly effective in preventing and treating a
wide array of often severe medical conditions, and decreases the risk of
certain cancers;
Whereas family planning improves health outcomes for women, their families, and
their communities and reduces rates of maternal and infant mortality and
morbidity;
Whereas the ability to prevent, plan, and space pregnancies is critical to
people's educational attainment and economic advancement, and has been
vital to advancing equal opportunity and economic security for women;
Whereas fully one-third of the wage gains women have made since the 1960s are
the result of access to oral contraceptives;
Whereas access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including
contraception and abortion, is essential to women's equality under the
law;
Whereas the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as
the ``ACA'') requires that most insurance plans cover evidence-based
preventive services for women, including contraception without cost
sharing, and the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that
62,000,000 women have this coverage;
Whereas the ACA's contraceptive coverage requirement has been under attack from
and undermined by those who would allow employers to dictate
contraceptive decisionmaking for employees;
Whereas restrictions on contraceptive access deny people the ability to
determine when and if to become pregnant, make essential health care
cost prohibitive, and infringe on people's constitutional rights;
Whereas contraceptive care and coverage restrictions disproportionately impact
people of color, working class and low-income people, LGBTQ people,
immigrants, young people, and people with disabilities;
Whereas title X is the only Federal program dedicated to providing family
planning services for people with low incomes, but has come under
increasing attack in the past 10 years;
Whereas providers' refusals to offer contraception based on their own personal
beliefs impede patients from obtaining their preferred method, with laws
in 12 States specifically allowing health care providers to refuse to
provide services related to contraception;
Whereas violations of the Medicaid free choice of provider requirement, thus far
in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, infringe on people's
ability to access their contraceptive care;
Whereas insurance plans and pharmacy benefit managers fail to comply with the
contraception coverage requirement, with insurance plans routinely
refusing to cover certain contraceptive products, imposing
administrative hurdles like prior authorizations and step therapy, and
requiring unallowable patient cost sharing; and
Whereas any policy that restricts contraception, including long-acting
reversible contraceptive methods and emergency contraception, erodes
existing legal protections thereof, or limits coverage thereof, imperils
people's receipt of essential health services and the associated gains
in social equality: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) affirms that people deserve access to the contraception
and related services that they want or need, when they want or
need them, without any obstacles;
(2) affirms that contraception is essential to people's
equality under the law, health outcomes, economic security and
empowerment, and capacity to effectuate essential and time-
sensitive decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures;
(3) affirms that substantive due process rights protecting
marital, familial, and sexual privacy include access to
contraception and abortion; and
(4) condemns restrictions on access to and coverage of
contraception.
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