HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A proposal to guarantee access to contraceptives was approved Tuesday by the Democratic-majority Pennsylvania House, drawing dozens of Republican votes but facing an uncertain future in the GOP-controlled Senate.
The bill passed by a vote of 133 to 69, with 14 women among the 32 Republicans voting in favor. A spokeswoman for the Senate Republican caucus did not immediately respond when asked whether Republican senators or their leadership generally supported the measure.
There was no debate in the House before the vote – only brief comments from the sponsor, Rep. Leanne Kruegera Delaware County Democrat.
The bill would require the Secretary of Health or the Physician General to issue a statewide standing order for FDA-approved over-the-counter contraceptives, including emergency contraception. It would require health insurance and government programs to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives, devices and other products prescribed, without copays.
It would also provide a religious and moral exception for employers, modeled on federal law, but that exception would not apply if the medication is needed for medical needs other than pregnancy prevention. There are also confidentiality provisions.
The vote came nearly three weeks after Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked federal legislation aimed at protecting women’s access to contraception.
The issue took on new significance nationally when former President Donald Trump told a Pittsburgh TV station in May that he was open to supporting contraceptive regulations. Trump later said his comments had been misinterpreted and that he “has never advocated and never will” limit such access.
Planned Parenthood PA Advocates director Signe Espinoza called the proposal “a huge shift toward control over our bodies.”
“We should have control over if and when we decide to start a family, but for too long Pennsylvania has allowed loopholes, exceptions and mistakes to stand between us and our autonomy,” Espinoza said in a statement.
Rep. Krueger said in an interview Monday that she was also concerned about Justice Clarence Thomas’s unanimous opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on abortion access two years ago. Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive precedents,” including cases finding that married people have the right to obtain contraceptives, people can engage in consensual private sexual acts and the right to gay marriage.
A state law could help people get contraceptives if federal law changes, Krueger said.
“We have seen that access to reproductive health care, including contraception, comes down to a matter of states’ rights,” Krueger said.
In other states, contraception has been a politically contentious issue. A survey earlier this month by the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for access to abortion, found that several states have proposed or passed laws this year to restrict access to contraception.
KFF, a nonprofit that studies health care issues, said in May that 14 states have legal or constitutional protections for the right to contraception, while six states and Washington, D.C., have implemented them since the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion in June 2022.
