Senate tees up vote as attacks on birth control could threaten access to it
On tap today: Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to hold a vote on the federal right to contraception, after many Republicans said they opposed the legislation as unnecessary and an overreach. The bill, intended to put GOP lawmakers on the spot in an election year, would prevent states from passing laws that limit access to contraception, including hormonal birth control, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and other methods that prevent pregnancy.
The move comes as some far-right conservatives are trying to curtail birth control access by sowing misinformation about how various methods work to prevent pregnancy, Lauren reports in an article this morning on red-state politics and contraception. Simultaneously, Republican leaders are scrambling to reassure voters that they have no intention of restricting the right to contraception, which polls show the vast majority of Americans favor.
The divide illustrates growing Republican tensions over the political cost of the “personhood” movement to endow an embryo with human rights, which has also animated the debate around in vitro fertilization.
“There’s just been a crowding-out effect where some far-right legislators have undermined Republicans’ ability to talk about birth control in a sensible and rational way,” said Courtney Joslin, who leads public policy research on issues pertaining to women and families for the R Street Institute, a center-right think tank.
Many Americans don’t understand the difference between abortion pills, which end a pregnancy, and emergency contraception, which prevents it. Antiabortion groups are stepping in to fill that knowledge gap with misinformation.
Here’s a snapshot: An antiabortion group in Louisiana killed legislation to enshrine the right to birth control by inaccurately equating emergency contraception with abortion drugs. In Idaho, a think tank focused on “biblical activism” is pushing state legislators to ban access to emergency contraception and IUDs by mislabeling them as “abortifacients.”
Major medical societies say it is inaccurate to characterize emergency contraceptive pills, a backup birth-control method used within days of unprotected sex, and IUDs, which are long-acting and reversible, as causing abortions because neither of them end an existing pregnancy.
Republican leaders and strategists insist there is no widespread effort to restrict access to birth control, calling it a baseless claim concocted by Democrats to gin up votes ahead of the presidential election.
“There is no formal organized movement to ban birth control, and to suggest so is political demagoguery,” said Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “It’s silly to think contraceptives are at risk.”
Even still, Republicans in at least 17 states have blocked largely Democratic-led attempts to pass laws ensuring the right to birth control since 2022, according to a Post examination of legislation. A March KFF poll found 1 in 5 Americans say they believe access to birth control is under threat.
Birth control advocates say that sentiment stems from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s writing in his concurring opinion overturning Roe v. Wade that the panel should reconsider decisions relying on the same legal precedent. That includes the court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut guaranteeing the right to contraceptives.
Adding to the mounting uncertainty are new laws restricting abortion access in some states, like Idaho, that define life as beginning at fertilization, leaving the door open to potential birth control restrictions, according to advocates for and against abortion rights.
Separately, The Post’s Sabrina Malhi reports on a birth control milestone of a different sort: A male birth control gel showed promise in early-stage clinical trials.
The Post has been covering a highly virulent bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle that also infected at least three dairy workers. We’ve addressed some common questions in our earlier coverage, but we’d like to hear what you still want to know as we keep covering this topic and pressing government and industry officials for answers.
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First in Health Brief: Ron Wyden demands immediate HHS action on cybersecurity
The chair of the Senate Finance Committee is calling on the Biden administration “to take immediate, enforceable steps to require large healthcare companies to improve their cybersecurity practices,” according to a letter sent to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra today and shared with our colleague Dan Diamond.
The Oregon Democrat’s case study: the recent cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthGroup that processes billions of medical claims per year.
In a hearing with Wyden’s panel last month, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty revealed that hackers gained access to Change’s systems by simply using a compromised username and password on a server that lacked multifactor authentication; the resulting shutdown of Change’s operations caused chaos across the U.S. health system, and Witty warned that perhaps one-third of Americans may have had their protected information exposed in the hack.
“It is clear that HHS’ current approach to healthcare cybersecurity — self-regulation and voluntary best practices — is woefully inadequate,” Wyden wrote to Becerra.
The four things Wyden wants HHS to do:
- Establish minimum, mandatory technical cybersecurity standards for “systemically important entities,” a.k.a. key parts of critical U.S. infrastructure.
- Set resiliency requirements for those entities, so they can bounce back quickly from a cyberattack or other crisis.
- Conduct periodic cybersecurity audits of covered entities and business associates.
- Provide technical assistance on cybersecurity to health-care providers.
Meanwhile, across the Capitol …
The House could vote as soon as today on a $378.6 billion package to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction for fiscal 2025.
Why it matters: Republicans have tucked a host of provisions into the must-pass bill, including some that would undo VA policies on abortion access and gender-affirming care. The dynamic sets up a high-stakes clash with the Democratic-controlled Senate, with President Biden accusing GOP lawmakers of “wasting time with partisan bills.” (Having déjà vu? We wrote about a similar culture war clash last year).
FDA panel deals a potential blow to psychedelics advocates
Independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted overwhelmingly against the use of MDMA-assisted therapy as an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, finding that its benefits don’t outweigh its risks to patients, our colleagues Daniel Gilbert and David Ovalle report.
While the vote isn’t binding, the advisory committee’s recommendation could hold significant weight as the agency decides for the first time whether the mind-altering compound — long categorized among the riskiest of controlled substances — can be legally used as a medical treatment.
A closer look: Sponsor Lykos Therapeutics had conducted two late-stage clinical trial showing significant improvement in PTSD symptoms among patients treated with MDMA compared to those who got a placebo. The data, however, is uncommonly messy.
Ahead of Tuesday’s advisory meeting, the FDA’s own staff raised extensive questions about the potential skewing of the trials because patients figured out whether they had actually received the drug. The agency also highlighted cardiovascular and substance abuse risks.
New this a.m.: Two-thirds of Americans have little or no confidence that the United States can care for its aging population, according to a Gallup and West Health poll.
Seventy-three percent of people under 65 worry that Medicare won’t be available when they need it, up from 67 percent in 2022. The biggest jump in concern is among those aged 50 to 64.
The survey, offering a deep dive into Americans’ evolving attitudes, behaviors and trends around aging, also found that:
- An estimated 49 million Americans consider health-care costs a “major burden,” including 7.5 million adults ages 65 or older with Medicare.
- Nearly one-third say they are concerned about their ability to afford prescription drugs in the next 12 months, up from 25 percent in 2022.
The CDC has finalized guidelines recommending that certain people consider taking a common antibiotic as a morning-after pill to help prevent the spread of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
A federal judge has permanently blocked some efforts in North Carolina to restrict how abortion pills can be dispensed, saying they unlawfully conflict with the FDA’s authority, Gary D. Robertson reports for the Associated Press.
The federal health department should complete a comprehensive, national risk assessment of the potential for improper payments in the Medicaid program, the Government Accountability Office advised in its priority recommendations update.
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