Right to Contraception Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a reasonable solution to a challenge that millions of American women face: access to birth control.

Seventy percent of women aged 18 to 64 reported using oral contraceptives throughout their lifetime. A majority of women also support making birth control available over the counter without a prescription. That is why I will be offering a motion to recommit this bill in a few moments, to stand for those women.

Women should be able to access their preferred birth control method conveniently. Unfortunately, that is not the reality for many women. In rural Iowa, some women have to drive an hour to be able to see a gynecologist. That means taking a day off of work, finding additional childcare, spending hours in a car, and paying expensive gas prices to get there.

This is unreasonable when we have safe and effective birth control options that have been FDA-approved that still aren't available over the counter.

My amendment would require the FDA to give priority review for over- the-counter access to routine-use oral contraceptives that the agency has already deemed safe for women aged 18 and up.

I want to emphasize that this is for regular birth control pills, not emergency contraceptives like Plan B.

Making birth control available over the counter would have a significant impact on women's lives. My colleagues across the aisle give you a whole lot of lip service about supporting women. They claim that their policies, no matter how far outside of the mainstream, are the only way to support women. That is just not true.

Madam Speaker, I am proposing a solution today that the overwhelming majority of American women agree with, making their regular birth control pill available at their local pharmacy.

We have an opportunity here to work together to enact meaningful legislation that will benefit women. Instead, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have offered a bill that I simply cannot support. Their bill attacks conscience protections for providers, expands access to abortion pills, and risks women's health.

But I am not willing to vote ``no'' and just give up on this, so that is why I am offering a solution that we should all be able to get behind. We should work together to make oral contraceptives more accessible.

I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the motion to recommit today, adopt my amendment, and give women an over-the-counter option for birth control.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source